You can imagine the excitement the first day of class when I announced our topic this year would be toys! What we soon discovered, however, was that there was a lot more to it than simply "playing." First, we used toys as a tool for exploring the power of brainstorming and practiced FFOE creative thinking skills.
Next, we used the book Tomorrow's Alphabet as inspiration to create our own alphabet called Yesterday's Toy Alphabet. Rather than try to explain the logic of the concept, read some of the student entries below and see if you can infer the methodology:
C is for stuffed animal, yesterday’s Cotton. (Vale)
C is for puzzle, yesterday’s Cardboard. (Regina)
E is for painting, yesterday’s Empty paper. (Vale)
F is Nerf bullet, yesterday’s Foam. (Angelo)
G is for bunny, yesterday’s Glass. (Vale)
M is for lunchbox, yesterday’s Metal. (Angelo)
P is for bread, yesterday’s Plastic. (Regina)
R is for action figure, yesterday’s Rubber. (Vale)
S is for horsey, yesterday’s Stick. (Angelo)
W is for blocks, yesterday’s Wood. (Crystal)
W is for car, yesterday’s Wheel. (Vale)
W is for doll, yesterday’s Wood. (Vale)
Y is for kite, yesterday's Yarn. (Regina)
Y is for sweater, yesterday’s Yarn. (Crystal)
There is a tricky combination of logic and creativity that goes into each entry and the students did quite well!
Next, we got out the LEGOs and used them as a tool to discuss attributes and do some sorting. The peak of that challenge was sorting pieces by attribute on a triple Venn diagram!
Of course it was also fun to end that class period with a collaborative creative problem solving challenge. They had to build a garage for a sports car!
Next week, we begin a research project on the history of LEGO.
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