Yes, there are many activities and games which can help us make ourselves or our children more creative.
A quotation about 'creativity':
- The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself. (Alan Alda)
Now read the 7 activities which parents or teachers both can use to stimulate creativity among children.
Brain storming activities
These group activities are rooted in the practicalities of real life. They can be used to help students see how original and creative thinking can be applied to their daily lives.
1- Not Just for Breakfast
Place a box of ready-to-eat cereal (like Cheerios or Trix) on a desk or ledge at the front of the room. Ask the students to generate as many uses for the product as they can in two minutes. (Some of the more creative suggestions students might come up with—using the cereal as fertilizer or a component in jewelry.)
2- New Devices
Break students into groups of three. Have each group member draw a picture of someone doing something. (The ideal subject will be someone caught mid-movement.) After all the drawings are complete, have the students study them with the object of creating for each a device that will support the position shown in a steady state. Explain that the devices the students create can be made of paper, wood, plastic, or metal. (What the students will end up with are various forms of furniture, but they will have designed their creations without limiting themselves to their prior knowledge of furniture. The object of the exercise is to show the value of ambiguity in stimulating creativity.)
3- Troubleshooters
Once again, break the students into groups of three. Name a problem with which everyone is familiar—say, how to reduce the number of homeless people on the streets. Then assign each group a familiar figure from history, fiction, or current events, and have them determine how that person would solve the problem. For example, what if Martin Luther King, Jr. were to tackle the homeless problem? What if the Ninja Turtles were to try it? Barbara Walters? General Schwarzkopf? As a starting point, suggest that the students consider what particular expertise the person would bring to the problem and what his or her objectives would be
4- What If?
Divide the class into brainstorming groups of about ten students each. Ask the students to come up with the most unique "what if" question and answer they can think of. (In other words, start with "what if" and finish with some unusual situation.) Here are some examples: What if people didn't need to sleep? What if we "elected" presidents by lottery? After the groups have settled on their particular questions and answers, have the class compare them and vote on the most creative.
5- Questioning Authority
Divide the class into small groups (4-6 students). Have each group make a list of ten unwritten rules that they seem to follow each day. Examples might be where they buy groceries, what time they get up in the morning, and what television programs they watch. Have the groups discuss why they follow these "rules" and what it would take to get them to break them. Alternative: Try the same sort of activity, this time having students list beliefs they accept without question-truisms like "Recessions are bad" or "It takes money to make money."
6- Unusual Analogies
Divide the class into brainstorming groups of about ten students each. Have each group develop as many clever or unusual analogies as they can. For example: Going to school is like riding an elevator-some days you're up, some days you're down, and some days you get the shaft.
7- The Roots
Divide the class into small groups (4-6 students) for some problem analysis. First have the groups compile lists of problems their members face, such as poor grades or neighborhood vandalism. By way of analysis, have the group ask (and answer) the following questions:
Where does the problem happen?
When does it happen?
How does it happen?
To whom does it happen, and who causes it?
Have the groups finish by using the Toyota Suggestion System and asking Why? four times. For example, using the problem of poor grades:
Why did I receive a poor grade on the history test?
(The teacher is a hard grader.)
Why is the teacher a hard grader?
(She expects a lot of her students.)
Why does the teacher expect a lot of her students?
(She knows we can do it if we study hard.)
Why does she know we can do it if we study hard?
(She has seen students like us do it in the past.)
Source link: glencoe
- Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. (Arthur Koestler)
Related posts:
Games That Stimulate Creativity
* The HEART of Creativity: Questions to Stimulate Creativity Training
* A very interesting story: How to stimulate creativity?
Reawakening the creative mind
Creativity - Its Place in Education (PDF document; 120kb)
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