Unleashing the Inventor Within

5 minutes

5-10 minutes

A selection of household or common materials that could have multiple uses (e.g. a drinking cup, cereal box or other type of box, plastic drinking straw, blanket).

Ask your child to choose one the objects and name all the possible ways things that could be made from that item. Allow your child to think “outside of the box” and in ways that you might not have. For example, a plastic drinking straw could be a wand, a spoon to stir a pot, a pencil, or even a snake or a blanket could be a cape, a tent, an island or a flying saucer.

Use prompts or ideas from books or movies that your child may have seen.

You start and then have your child go next. Choose objects that are familiar (plastic drinking straw, blanket) that they have used before in different ways.

Create a story and ask your child to use the objects to help solve a problem, “How could the bear use these things to help win the race?”

Adapted from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/think-inventor

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