First Day

So today was it...the start of a new school year and my focus on creativity was forefront in my mind...well, after welcoming 22 new students into my class that won't be part of my class as we wait to see what the numbers will do (but that's another story). So I have these 22 grade 3 and 4's to supervise and teach over the next few days. How can I be creative with that?

Well, I started them off with a writing assignment on what they remembered from their summer. I told them it didn't have to have perfect spelling or grammar; I just wanted them to be able to write as many things down as they remember. We then got into a group to share one thing from our list. After that, I had them choose one of the things they had written down and asked them to illustrate it in some way. I had play dough in 4 colours, different coloured construction paper and plain white paper for them to use. The majority of the class chose the play dough and we had a ferris wheel, boats, bunk beds in a cabin, a family swimming together, a birthday party in the wave pool, a flower girl, etc. They seemed to really enjoy the hands on work, and were able to make some pretty detailed diagrams of something that had been important to them. The pictures that were drawn on the plain paper were also well done. I'm sorry I forgot my camera today to take pictures of some of their creations.

So...was that creativity on my part? Did I encourage creativity with the students? Should I have offered more options? Why didn't anyone take construction paper? (I think it's because I didn't have a model to show them and they already knew how to use play dough and paper with markers.)

I hope to write regularly about creativity in the classroom. What does it mean? How can I encourage it? Do I have to be artistic to be creative?? Do you have any thoughts about it? Let me know.