It Can Begin with Cardboard!

Good morning and HAPPY HOMECOMING FRIDAY!

CONGRATS  to Sally Stacy (Crestview Elementary) on being selected as Special Olympic Texas Trainer of the Year! See the complete story in the Graham Leader.

I encourage you to come out this evening to support our Lady Blues vs Christ Academy and our Graham Steers vs Burkburnett.  Good luck to our Steer and Lady Blues cross country teams at the district meet in Brownwood this coming Monday.

Wishing the The Graham High School Rompin Stompin Big Blue Band the very best in the UIL Marching contest this Saturday. The RSB3 will be performing in Wichita Falls Memorial Stadium at 3:15pm. Hope to see you there supporting our awesome students and band directors!  

The band had a great showing last weekend, being selected as a finalist and placing 5th overall at the Ponder Marching Festival. Additionally, the band competed at the Golden Triangle Classic in Denton. The RSB3 placed 14th against very stiff competition including bands from class 3A all the way to 6A, missing finals by 2 bands. All in all, it was a great day

Great job last week by our Lady Blues volleyball teams "Pink Out" games raising over $1300.00 for the American Cancer Society!

This past Friday and Monday time was spent with the reps from Connected Consulting collaborating around the theme of design, imagination, creativity and innovation.  One of the exercises completed by the instructional staff was to brainstorm items beginning with the same letter as their first name and to, as a collaborative group, “mash” these items together yielding new product.  A couple of my favorite products included:

• The Re-mix Mixer- Combination karaoke machine and “slushy” machine.
• The Whatever Floats Your Hose device- An automated watering system that hovers around your yard to water hanging plants etc.
• The Kradio Kaddy- A bluetooth enabled device with detachable beverage koozies that not only keeps your drink cold but also serve as portable speakers.

Then there was the product (I can’t remember the name) with a great sales pitch- “Have you ever wanted to kill an armadillo but couldn't because you're thinking of its’ mother?”

Thanks for your work during the inservice days! Hopefully, you will actively design opportunities for our students to strengthen their skills of imagination, creativity and innovation.

Today’s message shares the story of how something as simple as cardboard can turn into a movement.

It Can Begin with Cardboard

I don’t know about you but I can remember the frustration and joy of being a young parent watching our children have more fun with the box the toy came in than the actual toy.  I recall  the hours of fun they had with their great grandmother in a playhouse constructed from a washing machine box.

Is there something we are doing or not doing in the act of schooling that inhibits this type of curiousity (creativity)?

I hope that when reading the story below about Caine’s Arcade you re-envision the possibilities.

A 9-year old boy from East Los Angeles, CA armed with cardboard, tape and time constructed a cardboard arcade -- Caine’s Arcade.  By chance in 2012, a young filmmaker discovered the arcade, organized a flash mob and made a short film about the Caine and his arcade.  These fairly simple acts have resulted in a worldwide movement.  If you are curious please watch and share these videos:

Sir Ken Robinson breaks the creative process into three parts: imagination, creativity and innovation.  In his book Out of Our Minds, he describes imagination as “the ability to bring to mind things that are not present to our senses.”  Additionally, he states that imagination “liberates us from our immediate present circumstances and holds the constant possibility of transforming the present.”

Many times we confuse the terms imagination and creativity.  Creativity takes one's imagination from abstract to concrete.  Being creative requires putting your creativity to work. Would we describe someone as being creative if they never produced a product?

Innovation is the process of applied creativity resulting in new methods, ideas, products, etc. that has value to society.  Without value innovation is just a bad idea! Remember Coca-cola’s infamous “New Coke”.  The inability to be innovative can lead to the demise of an organization- just think if Sears and Roebuck company had been more innovative Amazon may have never came to be.

How might these ideas come into play for our students?

For more information about creativity, imagination and creative play a good resource is the Imagination Foundation website.

Jokes of the Day (extras for Halloween) - Please scroll down for the answers.

What do Italian ghosts eat on Halloween?

What do ghosts eat for breakfast?

What do you call three witches living together?

Answer: Fettucinni Afraid-o!
Answer: Boo-Berries!
Answer: Broommates!