Creative Thinking

I often talk to my students about "Thinking Outside the Box". Most of them understand what that means. When putting it into practice I want them to use their imaginations to invent, create, visualize. But I also want them to be able to use humor in their writing as well.

I like giving them a prompt-a question that has an answer, but one that's unlikely a 5-year old will already know the answer to. This week's was "Why is a Flamingo Pink?". I encourage them to use their imagination and come up with something creative or funny, not necessarily scientific. For those of you who may not be aware I had to look this answer up once when asked by a student (gotta love GT kids)-they eat a kind of shrimp that turns their feathers pink. If they eat other foods their feathers actually turn back to a translucent color.

Anyway, my little darlings came up with some creative answers. To camoflauge themselves, they ate too much cotton candy or pink cupcakes, they wanted to blend in with the flowers and my all-time favorite-they got a sunburn!

I do what happened to the dinosaurs, why does our hair grow, etc. I love to see the little cogs and gears in their minds turn trying to think of an answer.