Day 3- Brainstorming for Problem 2: The Not-So-Haunted House

So great to be back! It's been almost two weeks due to crazy snow-apocalypes that have canceled school, which, of course, included OM.

To kick off this week's meeting we did two spontaneous problems.  Since the Art Room hosts carpool students immediately after school, we start the first 15 minutes in the library.  I think I'm going to start making this time, Spontaneous time since its really too short to accomplish anything else. We did two verbal problems today.  The first problem we did involved using the word "catch" as creative as they could.  On this problem, 5 points were awarded for creative and humorous answers and only 1 point was award for common answers.

THEY KILLED IT!!

Over half of the answers they gave were scored as creative or humorous! They gave answers such as "What's the catch", "Ketchup", "Catching Fire".   It was fantastic! 

And then we went to the other problem...

The second problem required the team to use some new skills.  First, it required the team to discuss ideas during the think time (which is new, usually they just think silently) and it required them to give "alternative endings" to the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood, which are length-er responses than they are used to giving.  This team has so many great ideas, however, they haven't mastered how to be concise in their thoughts and let each other have turns to speak.  Additionally, they haven't mastered the idea of "feeding off each other".  I think if we can work on the listening and "feeding off" skills, this team will do really well in the future.

As we moved into the Art Room, we began brainstorming ideas for solving The Not-So-Haunted House long-term problem.  First, we brainstormed characteristics that make a performance enjoyable or entertaining to us.  From there we began to brainstorm possible characters, settings, and reactions (to the frightenings of the Haunted House) that could be used in the solutions.  While some of the ideas were commonplace, I think the team got a couple of really solid ideas.  The trick is going to developing these ideas into something they could use.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how well the students worked and brainstormed together.  I think next week we will begin to dive more deeply into developing a story-line for this problem!