Invent a New School Supply

At least once a week, I try to give my students an opportunity to invent something new. This is challenging for them-they have difficulty in the beginning seeing past what already exists. So if I ask them to invent a new holiday for example, they want to do Christmas or Valentine's Day. But as with a lot of higher level thinking activities-the more we do it, the easier it gets for them.

This time of year we are all familiar with school supplies. I asked them to think about how they could improve an existing school supply or to invent a new one. What is not working now or what could work better. They came up with some exciting responses-especially for their first time doing an activity like this.