Inventions

During our inquiry into energy we read about Benjamin Franklin and we were all pretty inspired by all the things he invented. The children wondered what kind of inventions they could come up with. 



We read two great books, What do you do with an idea? by Kobi Yamada, and Ashley Spire’s, The most magnificent thing” .  It got us thinking. Where do ideas come from? They might come out of necessity or truly just be a crazy notion that pops into your head. 



With pencil and paper the children’s ideas went from their imaginations onto the paper. The inventions were wild and impractical to be sure but the important take away seemed to be that ideas can be things that exist inside your own mind or they can be shared using words, or we can express those ideas by drawing them.  If inventions were all things that didn’t exist before someone had the idea then we can see how important ideas can be however small or grand. 



We gave the children the opportunity to make their ideas come alive in a different way. We supplied clay and loose parts and invited them to make 3-dimensional versions of their inventions. 



While they were constructing we had conversations about how it might get it’s power and how you would turn it on. 



If you want to see these magnificent creations please look for them in our drawing room where they are displayed.












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