Writing: Ideas

SCAMPER -- Brainstorming

 

            Today's Snack: Let's have brain food! Researchers believe that a substance called "choline" (KOE-leen) found in eggs helps create memory stem cells deep within human brains. Women who are pregnant or nursing a baby should definitely eat a lot of eggs in order to help their baby's brain development. For older kids, it is thought that the more choline in your diet, the stronger your memory can be. So load up on a couple of hard-boiled eggs today, and be instantly smarter!

 

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Supplies:

Rubber band for each student | cardboard tube | paper clip

Empty plastic bottle | quarter | clothespin

Fabric square

 

A great way to train your mind to be more creative - more playful - more flexible - is to brainstorm.

 

The point is to generate lots of good ideas at a fast rate of speed. Then when you are writing or speaking, you will have more ideas to choose from. And when you have more ideas to choose from, you can communicate more clearly and in a more effective, interesting way.

 

To "scamper" means to run, rush, dart out, or go quickly. Here's how to make good ideas scamper out of you!

 

Look at the word "SCAMPER" at left. See the list of ways that you could mentally change an object to create a whole new look or purpose for it.

 

Let's put an ordinary rubber band through SCAMPER:

 

 

Substitute - made of cereal, it could be a giant Cheerio

 

Combine - stretched and shot from your finger or a stick,

it could become a harmless piece of "ammo"

 

Adapt - it could be a gasket for a toy car

 

Modify - in hard plastic: a hula hoop for a mouse

 

Put to another use - handcuffs for a dumb, weak crook

 

Eliminate - without its stretchiness, it could be a bracelet

 

Rearrange - if it were edible, you could bunch together a lot of carrots or pretzel sticks and eat them as a bunch.

 

 

 

 

SCAMPER

 

Substitute  Who else? What else? When else? Where

                             else? Why else? How else? Color?

 

Combine    Mix with what else?

 

Adapt         What else could it be used for or fit with?

                   How could the idea be slightly changed?

                            

Modify        How could it be changed?

                   What it's made of? Color? Way it moves?

                             Sound? Power source? Purpose?

                   Multiplied into many of the same?

                   Minify - make smaller, slower, split up,

or zoom in

                   Magnify - make larger, faster, spread out,

or zoom out

 

Put to         What's another way to use it?

another       How could it be more effective?

use                       Less effective?

 

Eliminate    What if parts were subtracted?

                   What if parts were smaller or less important?

 

Rearrange  What if this worked or looked differently?

                   What if its parts had another layout?

                   What if it had a different sequence? Speed?