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Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: Story Starters: Intriguing Titles

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
In this lesson, an interactive link included to help generate ideas for stories. A button is clicked and a topic is given. In a writer's notebook or journal, each student will use the topic given and develop it. [Requires Adobe Reader.]
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Article
Other

The Second Principle: Killing or Fostering Creativity in Children

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
Listed on this page are the things we as parents and teachers inadvertently do to discourage creativity in children and ideas for how to foster creativity.
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Lesson Plan
University of Illinois

University of Illinois Extension: Character Education "Picture Stories"

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
Excellent classroom activities for building students' character. This activity focuses on students' critical thinking, creative, and comprehension skills. Good resource.
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Lesson Plan
University of Illinois

University of Illinois Extension: Character Education "Picture Stories"

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
Excellent classroom activities for building students' character. This activity focuses on students' critical thinking, creative, and comprehension skills. Good resource.
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Activity
University of Illinois

University of Illinois Extension: Character Ed "I Have a Story to Tell"

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Excellent resource for empowering students to become better learners. This lesson includes acquainting students with the narrative writing process, emphasizing the importance of writing, encouraging students to use imagination,...
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Activity
University of Illinois

University of Illinois Extension: Character Education "Beauty"

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Excellent resource for empowering students to become better learners. This lesson includes promoting cooperative learning, encouraging the integration of knowledge and creativity, the importance of looking beyond the physical, and the...
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Unit Plan
TES Global

Blendspace: Toontastic Grate(ful) Biographies

For Teachers 1st - 6th Standards
This nine-part learning module provides support for Launchpad's Toontastic App. This blendspace shares videos, screen shots, and written resources that will help students write biographies via the Toontastic App.
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Website
NPR: National Public Radio

Npr: Intersections: Inspiration and Creativity

For Students 9th - 10th
Where does artistic inspiration come from? A series on NPR about the influence of artists on other artists helps to answer the question. Inspiration and creativity are shown to flow from an intense study of work of others.
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Professional Doc
Buck Institute

Pbl Works: Teach and Assess Creativity and Innovation in Pbl

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
Understand how PBL can help students learn a process for effective innovation in this article. Article points out three ways educators can teach creativity and innovation in PBL. Site also includes a video discussing the same issue as...
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Website
Mind Tools

Mind Tools: Generating New Ideas: Think Differently and Spark Creativity

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Need a fresh idea? Many students and teachers often can get stuck in a rut and their creative juices simply stop flowing. Help generate new ideas by learning how to break thought processes, connect the unconnected, shift your...
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Website
Mind Tools

Mind Tools: Creativity Tools

For Students Pre-K - 1st
There are two different styles of creativity, technical and artistic. This article focuses on technical creativity and its two main strands, programmed thinking and lateral thinking, with examples of each approach.
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Website
Mind Tools

Mind Tools: How Creative Are You?

For Students 9th - 10th
Do you know how creative you are? Take this quiz and find comprehensive and personalized answers to find your creative strengths and weaknesses.
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Activity
Other

Mycoted: Lateral Thinking Puzzles

For Students 9th - 10th
A storehouse of puzzles designed to train the brain to think in atypical ways. Find riddles, visual puzzles, analogies, math problems, and more. Excellent source of raw material for practicing original and creative thinking one puzzle at...
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Website
Other

Pixton: Make and Share Comics

For Students 9th - 10th
Create your own comic with the "click-n-drag" method using characters, props, and speech bubbles at the click of a button.
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Handout
Other

Creating Minds: Creative Tools

For Students 9th - 10th
Do you need help being creative? Here is an excellent resource that lists many different tools or techniques that can aid you in being creative. Each tool includes information for when to use it, how to use it, examples in its use and...
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Article
Caro Clarke

The Doldrums: When the Wind Leaves Your Sails

For Students 9th - 10th
This is the 16th article in a series that gives advice to the new novel writer. This is a particularly interesting and helpful article on how to deal with periods in writing when your enthusiasm wanes.
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Website
Other

Teaching Creativity Skills: Creative Thinking Skills for Life and Education

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
Presents information about how to use creativity in the classroom. There are also many links to other sites that contain additional resources pertaining to creativity.
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Article
Sesame Street

Sesame Street: Creativity and the Arts

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Advice for parents of preschool-age children, but pertinent to anyone interested in early child development, for using the arts to prepare children for school success.
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Activity
Read Works

Read Works: Alyssa Wears a Bow Tie

For Teachers 2nd - 4th Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] This passage is a fictional narrative about a girl who chooses to show her creativity by wearing a bow tie on the first day of school. This passage is a stand-alone curricular piece that reinforces...
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Website
Smithsonian Institution

Lemelson Center: Invention Process

For Students 9th - 10th
Through a number of articles, stories and research we learn about the invention process, including communicating your ideas, staying resilient when things go wrong.
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Why Tech Needs the Humanities

For Students 9th - 10th
On the TED stage, Eric Berridge shares why tech companies should look beyond STEM graduates for new hires and how people with backgrounds in the arts and humanities can bring creativity and insight to technical workplaces.
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Professional Doc
Edutopia

Edutopia: How to Use Play for Learning

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
Play is a primary and integral mode through which children make sense of the world, and that it is essential to their development and well-being. This article offers ideas on how to balance play and academic expectations in your classroom.
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Article
Other

Roots of Action: How Kids Learn to Take Initiative and Overcome Challenges

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
Learning to take initiative is a behavior that helps kids navigate their lives with courage and optimism. This article provides insights into how children learn to take initiative. Parents and teachers are key mentors in the process. A...
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Lesson Plan
Alabama Learning Exchange

Alex: Dr. Seuss on the Loose

For Teachers K - 1st
In Dr. Seuss' first published children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, Marco, inspired by the passing of a horse and wagon, imagines a series of increasingly incredible sights on his way home from school. This...