Creative Exercises and Thinking Techniques

1. Creative Exercises and ThinkingTechniques
Creative Exercises-Using the senses
CARTOONS-SIGHT
Read favorite cartoons from the newspaper.
Give students a cartoon with blank thought bubbles.
Students fill in dialogueand thoughts for the characters.
They create an original cartoon.
MUSIC-SOUND
Students listen to various types of music.
They may illustratewhat comes to mind.

2. They can create a new tune.
MUSIC-KINSTETIC
Students may dance to the different sounds expressing
how it makes them feel.
Students may write new words to go with a popularsong.
ART EXERCISES
Students will look through magazines for inspiration.
The will create their own art work based on something in
the magazine.

3. Students can cut out color squares and create a picture with
only the squares.
COMPUTER EXERCISES
Students will create a Powerpoint or Prezzi presentationsbased
on their interests.
They may create puzzles to challengeother students.
THINKING ACTIVITIES
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Students will make connectionswith a book they have read.
The connectionscan be text to text, text to self or text to world.

4. GOALS
Students make a list of short term and long term goals.
They will describe how each goal will be reached.
They will share one of the goals with the group.
FAVORITE WORDS
Students will generate a list of 50 favorite words.
They will discuss their list with their group.
They will try and find a way to create word groups with
the lists in their group.
What do the words have in common?
NEWS
Students will discuss current events.
In groups they will choose two news stories.

5. Why are they relevant?
They will rewrite the story changing the ending.
WRITE A STORY
Students may create their own story.
Narrative-Inspirationwillcome from playingseveral movie
clips. Discuss the requirement for a beginning,
Middleand end to the story.
Expository-Studentswill choose a founding father and explain
modern day device or activity.
Persuasive-Students will look at maps of different cities. They
create a city and persuade people to move there.
Descriptive-Studentswill describe what they think creativity is.
FREE CHOICE
Students may create a new sport with rules.

6. Students may create the rubric to grade each assignment with.
Students will self-grade using the rubric they created.