Activities for Developing Creativity

Author: Deborah Jeter


 Creativity in teaching and learning are served best when a process of modeling through specific instructional strategies support the instructor. These lessons are a combination of ideas obtained from the writer's personal experience and the following books.

The lessons in this article are from the following books:

Lessons for integrating movement, and singing for stimulating motivation in learning will come from, The Child's Way of Learning: A Handbook for building Creative Teaching Experiences.

If the Shoe Fits: How to Develop Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, and The Yippee Book: Creative Ideas for Writing and Drama, have lessons focusing on creative writing.

These lessons will be mix with creativity lessons designed by the author of this article.

The Maze Game involves moving to sound. The individual instruments selected for this activity are experienced before the activity to acquaint the students with their sound. The students are to move in specific directions depending on the instrument that they hear.

Teacher's participation: The teacher will play the individual instruments behind a partition that hides the type of instruments played.

Materials needed: Guiro, maracas, hand drum, wood block, and a triangle are the instruments needed in this exercise. Activities: When the guiro is played, the students are take one step to the right. When the maracas are played, the students are to take one step to the left. When the hand drum is played, one step forward should be taken. When the triangle is played, one step backwards is the answer. When the wood block is played, the student should make one quarter turn.

Facilities: The music classroom is used for this activity.

The Sound Machine will include work that uses bodily movements supporting the kinesthetic learners, verbal use, supporting the linguistic learners and interpersonal development skills. The social skills are practiced through the use of cooperation and shared responsibilities.

Activities: The students will create environmental sounds of a particular setting. All will participate and work together for the machine to produce the setting. Some ideas for performance include, farm equipment, transportation vehicles, emergency vehicles or household appliances.

Teacher's role: The teacher will divide the students into groups of four. Each student is assigned a role. The role of the engineer will assign other parts and the role of the checker will make sure that all members understand timing, motions and sounds.

Materials Needed: A classroom providing open space is needed. Chairs will be moved aside for this exercise.

Other: A discussion for reflection will conclude the activity. What made the machine work? What would have made it better? Students are encouraged to take notes.

An extended activity involving the Maze Game from the previous week will involve the students playing on teams. Each individual team member will take turns, making only two people participating at a time. If a team member makes an incorrect movement to the sound of the instrument, that team member will sit down. The team with the most people remaining by the end of the game is the winning team. An additional element will be incorporated.

The teacher will use different instruments. The instruments used are melodic, rather than the previous week's rhythmic instruments. The student will move forward if the instrument has a high or soprano tone. The alto voiced instrument will indicate that the student will take a step backwards. The tenor instrument will require a step to the left and the bass instrument will require a step to the right.

These lessons will introduce the elements of creative storytelling.

Teacher Role: The teacher will give the instructions and be the recorder.

Materials Needed: No materials needed by the students. The teacher will need paper and pencil.

Activity: The teacher will ask each student to think of a word used to begin a story. (Do not allow the students to use "Once . . .") Call on someone to say his or her word. The teacher will tell the class that they are to work as a group to create the opening paragraph of a story beginning with the word that was just given by the first student. The teacher will ask the student on the right of the person who gave the first word to add one more word. The activity will progress around the circle until each student has added a word. The teacher will write down the individual word of each student. After the circle has completed, the writer will read the paragraph.

Objective: Students will work as part of a group to create a story by adding one word. This activity works effectively if the students are in a circle. The teacher can function within the circle as part of the group, yet still control the pace and flow of the activity. This activity is good for developing social skills, enlarging vocabulary, focusing on verb tenses and adjectives, memorization skills and creativity.

Other: The teacher will ask questions after the activity. Does the story hold together? (Cohesiveness) Does it sound as though a single person had told the story? (Unity) Could the story have kept going? (Development)

This is an extension activity for the activity above:

The students will be shown various symbols used by American Indians. The students will use these symbols to create a story. No words allowed. The class should be able to read the story simply by looking at the symbols used.

Native American fonts can be found at these locations:

http://user.dtcc.edu/~berlin/font/amindi...

http://www-cgrl.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/native...

Creative Poetry Students will each be given specific words on a tennis ball. The student is allowed to use only the words on the ball to create a sentence. Each ball has the same words. Each student will read the sentence to the group. The teacher will draw attention to the variety of sentences that are created by using the same words. This is a preliminary warm-up exercise for the following lesson. For the next lesson, the teacher will distribute lined paper.

Step One: Each student will be asked to write five nouns. (No proper nouns) The class will be told to think of unusual nouns that nobody else may write. The teacher will put five nouns on the board, then have the members of the class come to the board and write their two most distinctive nouns.

Step Two: Each student will be asked to write a brilliant, unique or fantastic sentence using one of the nouns from the board. The sentence must contain exactly six words. Step Three: The teacher will have the students write their six-word sentence, putting the words into specified patterns.

Each member of the class will write on a poster board, their sentence, in the pattern assigned. After all of the patterns are on the poster board, the class will reorganize the patterns to create an image, which will then be presented on a classroom bulletin board.

References:

Ten Steps for Boosting Creativity: http://www.jpb.com/creative/creative.html

American Indian Symbols Guidebook: http://www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa040....