Last Friday I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with the second grade classes.  As part of our Invention Convention work, we continued to problem solve.  The task was for students to design a better ketchup packet.  They had to plan out ideas, get suggestions from peers, revise their thinking, and develop a plan for a new and improved packet.  Often times as adults, we want to jump in and help students come to a predetermined conclusion, but in this lesson we let the students struggle and think.

At the end of our work, there were many outstanding ideas that the students shared with their whole class.  One student suggested putting a zipper on the packet.  Another student wanted to put a flashlight on it.  When I asked him why, his reply made perfect sense, “Well, when people are at the drive-through at night, it’s dark and they might make a mess with their ketchup packets.  But if you have a flashlight on it, you can see what you’re doing and there will be no mess!”  The last example that stood out to me was a student who said, “Well, I’d change the ketchup.  You know because it is really messy when it comes out so I’d make it more like oobleck and then it wouldn’t be messy, but it would still taste like ketchup!”

This is the definition of creative problem solving.  Students were creating their own ideas and while some might have been impossible or others would have cost too much, their thinking was brilliant.  If we as adults had jumped in and saved them by directing them toward easy answers and solutions, there would be many perfect answers, but not many students would have learned as much or thought as hard.

When your student is working at home, take a moment and step back.  Ask the open-ended questions of “Why?” and “How do you know?”   Give them some wait time and let your student take the lead and create his or her own thinking.

-Mr. Reed-Swale