If I Could Build A Car

I expect a lot from my students! I am often pushing them to the top of the Bloom's Taxonomy concepts and asking them to invent or create something new. Since they haven't had a lot of experiences doing this, it is really challenging for them. We did an activity recently-we read a story about a girl who made a doll out of an apple. I asked them to write about a new way we could use an apple-not a doll, not to eat, not to cook. I would say about 90% of the class wrote that we could use it to eat or for a doll.

So I realized I need to give them some context, some inspiration. We got a bunch of titles that encourage the maker spirit. I read them:

It's a story about a boy and his ideas for a car he is inventing. The vocabulary was a little above the heads of my Kinder students, but it had a catchy rhyming pattern so I think it still worked.

Then I put out various materials and asked them to build a car with a new invention on it. Some did like the story and made a car that went on water. Some made flying cars (hello Jetsons anyone :). But I think giving them that scaffolding first actually helped them not feel so overwhelmed when I said "invent". I also gave them some pictures of vehicles they could use to see how everything worked.