Do you shy away from creative activities because you are insecure about your own creativity? Do you think creativity is not educational?
Guess what. Creativity isn’t limited to art or music and every subject can incorporate creative thinking.
Creative activities involve imagination, problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaboration; which every student has the ability to do. And, there are no right or wrong answers!
Here are 28 activities to guide students in discovering and developing their creative talents. Happy creating!
1. What’s This?
Active your inner artist!
This is a modified version of the incomplete figure test. Have students create a shape or partial shape. Next, students will swap shapes with another student to create a picture. What will your students create?
Learn More: Raise Creative Kidz
2. 30 Shapes
It’s time to get into shape!
Do you see circles? I see a donut, a wheel, and a pizza. What will your students see when they look at 30 squares or 30 triangles? This creative activity has students turning a shape into a recognizable object within a set time.
Learn More: Club Experience
3. Continuous Line Drawing
Can you draw a picture without lifting your pen? Students’ creative and analytical thinking are activated when they draw a picture without lifting their pen from the paper. This is an excellent hand-eye coordination activity but also develops a sense of pride and accomplishment for the student.
Learn More: The Virtual Instructor
4. Add Something New
Try this creative and fun activity involving collaboration, and brainstorming. Show students a work of art such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Ask students what they would add to the painting. If possible, provide students with a printout of the artwork so that they can draw in their creative ideas.
Learn More: Byrd Seed
5. Strange Flavors
Who doesn’t love ice cream? Would you eat a strange flavor like Bug? Creative activities are deliciously fun when students get wild with recipe ideas. New ice cream flavors, unique pizza toppings, or outrageous sandwich ideas are just a few ways students can activate their taste buds and creativity!
Learn More: National Geographic Kids
6. Bad Ideas
Is it good to be bad? We’re always in search of great ideas. Let’s try a creative twist and think about bad ideas. What are some really bad ideas for products? What would be a bad recipe idea? Ask students why the ideas are bad so as to challenge their critical thinking skills.
Learn More: Lucid Spark
7. Classifying & Sorting
There’s more than one way to draw a straight line and there are many more ways to classify and sort! Give students an assortment of items and watch their cognitive and creative skills at work. Will students sort by color or size? What other categories can they come up with?
Learn More: Playing With Learning
8. Repurpose An Item
We can often be creatures of habit: A cup is used for drinking or a tennis ball is used for playing tennis. Students will look at everyday items with a fresh and creative perspective in this purposeful, repurposing activity. You’ll be amazed at the variety of new uses they come up with!
Learn More: PBS Kids
9. How Many Uses
This activity modifies the, “How many uses for a paperclip?” challenge. Students will show off their entrepreneurial knowledge whilst engaging in creative thinking by pitching an idea of how to use a ______ in a unique way.
Learn More: CANR.MSU.edu
10. Logo Makeover
Why do companies have logos? What was the reasoning behind the choice of logos for companies such as Apple or Amazon? If these companies decided to change their logo what would they come up with? Ask your students! Students will enjoy creating new logos for their favorite brands.
Learn More: ESL Brains
11. Create a New Word
If you show a picture of a person yawning, your students will know the person feels sleepy or bored. However, what if the person was sleepy and bored; what word could then be used to describe this feeling? “Slored”? What new words can your students come up with?
Learn More: Pinterest
12. Make a New Definition
Learning definitions from a dictionary is not a creative activity. Make learning new words a fun activity by having students create literal definitions or use funny descriptions to define a word. Linguistic and creative thinking skills will be put to work while helping students remember new information.
Learn More: Pinterest
13. Invent a New Animal
What is a Gireetah? It’s an animal that is both a cheetah and a giraffe! Students will engage in critical and creative thinking to create a new species or combine two or more animals to create a new version of an amazing animal.
Learn More: NPS
14. Music as Art Prompt
Music is a creative teaching tool when we encourage students to use their 4 senses when listening to music. What colors would they associate with this song? What images come to their mind when they hear it? What flavor does the song have?
Learn More: Artful Parent
15. Superpower Surprise
Not all superpowers have to be about strength or speed. This is a creative activity that influences a student’s self-esteem and encourages empathy, and appreciation for their fellow classmates.
Students will assign a unique superpower to a fellow classmate based on the student’s talents or personality.
Learn More: Classroom Communities
16. Describing with Adjectives
How attentive are you to your surroundings? When we look at an object we may focus on its size, color, and shape. If we look closer, we often discover new details we didn’t see before! Describing is a creative activity that stimulates observation and gets students comfortable with using adjectives.
Learn More: Easy English
17. Storytelling the Pixar Way
Storytelling may seem like a creative and fun activity but it can also create anxiety with regard to not knowing where to begin or what to include. The Pixar structure is a formula to help writers organize their ideas into a cohesive story. Analytical thinking, creative thinking, and collaboration are a recipe for a happy ending!
Learn More: Khan Academy Labs
18. A Lifetime Tale in Pictures
Are you still using post-reading comprehension questions? Transform your post-reading activities into creative activities. What was Harry Potter like as a child? What if Harry quit magic, what would be his new job? Take elements or characters from the story and have students use their imaginations to expand their storytelling skills.
Learn More: Literacy Ideas
19. Blackout Poetry
Turn newspapers into a poetic masterpiece!
Blackout poetry will get students excited about reading a newspaper. Students will isolate and then piece together single words or short phrases from the newspaper to create poetry or a short story.
Learn More: Arapahoe Libraries
20. Shape Poem
A sentence doesn’t have to be written in a straight line. Students have the chance to get creative with their writing by using this shape poem. It’s as simple as choosing a favorite object and then creating the shape of the object using words that describe it.
Learn More: Study.com
21. Preposition Poem
Did you know that grammar can promote creative thinking skills? Have students write a poem using only prepositions and no verbs. If students struggle, give them a visual prompt and let their words do the talking. Don’t forget to provide an example!
Learn More: Flying Words
22. What If Conversations
What if it rained marshmallows? What if you were invisible for a day? Spark critical thinking and problem-solving skills with this inquisitive creative thinking game. Students can show off their creative skills by creating “What If” questions for their classmates. The best part is there are no wrong responses!
Learn More: The Big List Of 34 “What If” Questions For Kids
23. 6 Thinking Hats
Teach students to think about a problem or situation by looking at it from different perspectives with this creative activity called the 6 Thinking Hats. The 6 Thinking Hats ensures that all students are engaged in critical and creative problem-solving.
Learn More: Edugage
24. The 5 Whys
Students are curious and ask many WHY questions. The 5 Whys is a brainstorming tool that can help students identify the root causes of a problem. In this creative activity, the students are responsible for answering their own WHY questions to understand root causes and create solutions.
Learn More: Peachey Publications
25. The 9 Whys
The 9 Whys focus on reflection and purpose. Why shouldn’t we use our cell phones in the classroom? Students have the opportunity to ask and answer WHY questions in a group or interview format to gain an understanding of a situation and build creative thinking skills.
Learn More: Carsten Lützen
26. Negative Brainstorming
Negativity can promote creative thinking! When students brainstorm, they are generating ideas. However, not all brainstorming sessions are productive. Negative or reverse brainstorming techniques encourage students to think of all the ways an idea can fail or go wrong. From the negative, they reflect on the opposite to generate solutions.
Learn More: Model Teaching
27. The Frayer Model
Make words exciting again! Do your students look bored when they learn new vocabulary words? Definitions alone word do not inspire creative thinking skills. The Frayer Model is a creative activity to activate students’ curiosity, critical thinking, and ability to connect prior knowledge to new knowledge.
Learn More: Teach Hub
SCAMPER is an activity to foster out-of-the-box thinking in any subject. This creative activity involves strategies that students apply to a question or problem.
- S – Substitute
- C – Combine
- A – Adapt
- M – Modify
- P – Put to another use
- E – Eliminate
- R – Reverse
Creative thinking skills are fostered when we allow students to generate ideas or responses that are not contained to a single correct answer.
Learn More: PBL Project