Ken Robinson 

George Couros - The Innovator's Mindset

An Academy is a small group elective that students sign up for based on their interests. Academies are designed to feel like mini-college seminars where students can explore areas of passion outside the scope of the traditional curriculum. Academies take place during the school day and are hosted by a parent or community volunteer who has a passion, talent, or expertise in a certain area. I offer Academies to students in grades 3-5. Groups meet once a week for 45 minutes and each session lasts anywhere from 4-8 weeks. Past Academies have included:
- Film Making
- Civics
- Video Game Design
- Shakespeare
- Leadership
- Yoga
- French
- Ocean Ecology
- Coding 

Why Offer Academies?
Why would a rational human being introduce one more thing into an already jam-packed school day? It seems nearly impossible, right? However this 45 minutes a week is one of the best investments I have ever made in my students. Here's why I did it:

1. Expand the Scope of the Curriculum: In his book Out of Our Minds, Ken Robinson explores the "hierarchy of subjects" in education. Across the globe, he explains, schools focus primarily on reading and math, with some time devoted to science and social studies, and minimal attention to the arts. For students who are not interested or do not excel in one of these areas, school can be frustrating, discouraging, and seemingly irrelevant.

Click here to watch his popular (and brilliant) TED talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity?

My goal was to provide students with learning opportunities not typically offered during the traditional school day. Learning is a life time adventure and I wanted my students to see and be inspired by the diversity of learning opportunities that exist outside the walls of a classroom.

2. Identify and Develop Diverse Talents:  Academies are an opportunity to identify a variety of talent. Through the expanded content, a greater diversity of talent can emerge and be identified. Academies are also an opportunity to nurture and validate talents not typically addressed during the school day. By doing the Academies during the school day, we send the message to students that this type of thinking and learning is valued and valuable.



3. Have Fun!Learning is fun right? Academies are designed to:
- spark student interest and motivation
- excite students about learning
- improve student attitudes towards school

In their book The Schoolwide Enrichment Model, Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis discuss the power of the "Three E's" - enjoyment, enthusiasm, and engagement. Their research shows that "when the Three E's are working well, students not only like school better, they also show improvements in school achievement" (Renzulli & Reis, 2003). Renzulli and Reis go on to say that the Three Es "produce higher achievement than test prep" (Renzulli & Reis, 2003). Word.



So, what does an Academy look like? Below are examples of just a few of the Academies I've hosted over the past few years.

1. Design Your Own Video Game: This academy was hosted by one of my former students. While taking an online course in middle school, he learned how to create video games using a free program from M.I.T. called Scratch. My former student taught participants how to use the program to design video games, share them online, and play each others.

My students loved learning from a fellow student. It was incredibly inspiring and empowering. They also loved that when I missed one Academy class because I was out sick, I could no longer understand or keep up with what they were doing in class! Also very empowering.

2. Yoga: This academy was hosted by a parent who is a yoga instructor. The academy was simple, yet magical! Students came in the clothes they wore to school and we laid out towels in the media center. While students were initially excited by the opportunity to move, they ended up appreciating so much more! Through the expert guidance of our host, students learned how to use their breath and mindfulness to manage stress, build self-esteem, and increase confidence. It was also a wonderful opportunity for my students to be a part of a healthy, non-competitive, nurturing group. As I said earlier - Magical. Truly magical.

First up on the board is "Brainstorming 4-Ever!" This was originally a printable activity I used as an anchor activity with my little Einsteins. This year, I decided to make the activity larger than life to "hook" and motivate my students in a new way.

Using the word "Jack-o-lantern" as inspiration, this Halloween-themed activity challenges students to think of as many different 4-syllable words as they can. Avocado, comprehension, impossible, articulate . . . the possibilities are endless, but it is delightfully difficult!

To add a level of difficulty, eliminate proper nouns. OR, make it a game! After brainstorming a list of words, students compare answers with other players. Students earn one point for each unique response that no other player has. The player with the most points wins. This can be timed or un-timed.

When students arrive to class early, finish assignments early, are in need of enrichment, or just want to be inspired, they grab a brainstorming sheet from the envelope. I've included a printable copy of the activity below in case you'd like to try it out with your kiddos. :-)


Next up, is Halloween math:



This too was a printable activity that I enlarged for a new twist. Each Halloween symbol represents a number. Students can "Guess and Check" or use algebra to reach the correct answer. There is something about a larger than life math problem that kids love! I'm not sure if it's the novelty of the presentation or the seasonal images, but they are in love. You can find the printable version of this activity (along with the answer :-) here.

And last, but not least, is 24 - an all-time student favorite.



In the game of 24, students use the four numbers given once and only once along with a combination of operations to reach 24. Students record their answer on the recording sheet below. You can find a free copy here. (It's nothing fancy, but it's one less thing to make :-)


24 is so easy to prep and offers meaningful, fun, differentiated math practice. If you'd like to learn more, you can check out my earlier post here.

Thanks for checking in! If you have any thoughts or questions, let me know; I'd love to hear from you!

I designed the Mix and Match writing prompts in two different formats to have some flexibility with implementation. My first thought was printable pages for "Work on Writing" centers/stations, anchor activities, and independent work. I then also put each prompt in the form of a task card so that students could glue the prompt into their writing notebook.




Want to try it out with me? If so, you can download one of the sixteen 8.5 x 11" printable pages below for FREE here.  To see the entire pack, click here.

What kinds of writing prompts do you use with your students? Leave a comment and let me know; I'd love to learn with you!

What would you be if you had wings to fly like a bird . . .

and walked slowly like a turtle?

A BiRdLe! 

download here for free

• alligator + gorilla = gorillagator
• lion + dinosaur = linosaur
• monkey + kangaroo = monkaroo
• puppy + hippopotamus = puppyotamus

Because the goal is to develop divergent thinking skills, I frequently remind students that there is more than one correct answer. For example, if you were part alligator and part octopus, you could be an allipus, an octigator, or a gatorpus. The possibilities are endless.

Then they draw a picture to illustrate their animal soup creation. Here are a few examples from one of my first grade nurturing lessons:









Oftentimes, I compile the student pictures and make it into a class book. Most times, the kids are too eager to take them home right away to share :-)

You can download the activity sheet and animal cards for FREE here.



To learn more about fun ways to nurture creative thinking in the classroom, check out two of my earlier posts: Let's Get Creative and Creativity in the Classroom. Thanks for checking in!

1. Accept and celebrate all of the ideas that students offer – even the ones that are wacky or off the wall! When brainstorming, the goal is quantity, not quality. Generating ideas is the first step in effective problem solving! Students can always revisit their ideas later and decide which ones are worth keeping.

2. Encourage “piggybacking” or building on the ideas of others. Creative thinking does not exist in a vacuum. People learn from and thrive on the inspiration and ideas of others. Encourage students – not to copy – but to build on, develop, and extend the ideas of their peers.

3. Model it! Creative thinking is a skill that can be learned! Just as we would provide instruction and support to help our students understand fractions or physics, we need to do the same for creative thinking. Our students have tremendous creative capacity and it is our job to help them identify and develop it. One of my favorite ways to model creative thought is described in tip #5; students often learn best from their peers.

4. Creativity takes time, so give students time to think, try out new ideas, and invent. Creativity can be integrated throughout the academic day with strategies like open-ended questions, project based learning, and student choice. I also like to specifically carve out time in our day to focus on creative thinking. Because the school day is so jam-packed, and much of our instructional time is mandated by others, I tend to use creative activities, like "Brain Food," as:

• Bell Ringers: My students can arrive anytime between 7:30 and 8:00. This 30 minutes can pose a challenge! While I want morning work activities to be worthwhile, I don’t want students who arrive at 8:00 to be “penalized” for missing this time. I love using creativity exercises as bell ringers because my students who are present are meaningfully engaged and developing essential skills, but it does not put other students “behind.” 
• Center Activities: I often have a “Creation Station” as one of my center rotations in both math and reading. Divergent thinking activities are perfect for this spot! Students can tackle the tasks with independence AND at their individual level of readiness. 
• Anchor Activities: Creative thinking activities are a great resource for my fast finishers! I give each student a “Brain Food” packet and if they finish early, they can pull it out and be actively engaged. 

There are other fun, meaningful ways to incorporate creative enrichment into the school day, but these are a few of my favorites.

This post, which is the first in a series on creativity, briefly describes the 4-part framework and suggests quick, easy activities you can do with your class to promote creative and critical thinking everyday. So, here we go!

1. FLUENCY:
Fluency is the act of generating many different ideas. This is an essential component of, and often the first step in, the problem solving process. Fluency encourages us to consider a variety of options and, with more options, we are more likely to reach a successful solution.



With fluency, quantity is more important than quality. Accept all ideas that students offer – even the ones that are wacky or off the wall! Students can revisit their list of ideas later to reflect on their responses and decide which ideas are worth keeping.

Brainstorming is a wonderful way to encourage fluency of thought. As a daily warm-up, center activity, or even while you're waiting in line for lunch with your students, pose one of the following questions:

Name things that:

• are hot
• are old
• are sour
• take less than a minute
• are big, but not heavy
• change over time
• go up and down
• are better to do fast instead of slow

Another way to promote fluency is through pictures. Present your students with an image and ask them to write a caption or generate alternate uses. Below is an example of writing captions using an everyday icon from Ian Byrdseed's amazing website:



sample captions:

• "Another juggler gives up on his dreams."
• "Jack decides to ditch the beans and move to Europe."

Alternate uses for an everyday item, such as a pencil, might be: a drum stick, a back-scratcher, a catapult, chopsticks, etc.


2. FLEXIBILITY:
Flexibility is the ability to produce ideas from different categories, perspectives, and points of view. Flexible thinking encourages us to see one thing in many different ways.




Below are some ways to see usual things in unusual ways and from different points of view.

Forced Associations: A forced association asks students to find similarities among items/ideas that are seemingly unrelated. By combining words that appear to be dissimilar, students are encouraged to think in new ways and to develop new perspectives and understandings. Try these with your class!

How is . . .

• a teacher like a chair
• a window like a pair of glasses
• the earth like a fishbowl
• number like a letter

Pictures are another great way to promote flexibility. I love these image that I found on SlowRobot.com:


What a great example of using "normal," everyday items to create new things! You can find more ideas for forced associations (and no-prep printables) here.


3. ORIGINALITY:
Originality is the ability to produce ideas that are unique or original. This creativity tool involves synthesis or putting information together in a new way. Scattergories was one of my favorite games growing up; it was not until I was an adult that I figured out how fabulous it is for developing originality! To play, each student generates an item or items for each category. A point is earned for each idea that no one else has. Check out the example below:





4. ELABORATION:
Elaboration is the ability to enhance ideas by providing information and detail. Elaboration can make basic ideas, answers, or pictures interesting and exciting.

For example: provide students with a basic shape, squiggle, or mark on the page. Tell students that this picture is unfinished and that they should brainstorm a list of all the different things it could be. Students should select their favorite idea and then add details to elaborate, enhance, and improve. Here's an example from my Spring Enrichment Packet:



If you liked this post, you may be interested in some of the activities below. 

                   Picture Prompts for Creative Writing        Squiggle Stories: Creative Writing Prompts


I hope you'll check back for the next part of the creativity series! In the meantime:
How do you promote creative thought in your classroom?  What else do you want to learn or know about creativity?  I'd love to hear from you!