The Father of Invention?
Necessity is the mother of invention. Or so the saying goes. But who is invention’s father? Maybe the father of invention inspired such creations as the Patty-stacker, the Slap Chop, or the Flow-bee (a personal haircutting device). None of these are necessities, yet, they are such GREAT IDEAS! The advancement of our great civilization depends upon them! This activity will be inspired by the father of invention.
Using Marveltown by Bruce McCall (ISBN 9780374399252)
This is such a visually stunning book that I think engagement will be pretty much instantaneous without any great buildup. That’s my thinking, anyway. You might have other ideas, so go ahead and use them.
After reading the story, you can do two things: First, ask them which of the inventions was their favourite. Why was it their favourite? Was it useful or for the all important purposes of fun?
Now, ask them to draw up the blueprints for their own Marveltown invention which would make their town or city way more fun to live in. OR you could get much more specific. You could challenge them to come up with the ultimate playground inventions to make their school yard far more interesting to play in. Each invention should be given a name. Also, each invention should have safety considerations. For example, a human cannon should have a large landing pad (that sort of thing to force them to think through their invention a little more thoroughly.)
The students could either write about their invention and accompany with a picture, or they could just draw it and you turn it into an oral language activity. Have the audience members press the presenter with questions to clarify how his/her invention will be built and how it would work.
If you’re really ambitious and have the time and materials, they could build small models of their invention. Then, they could use the models to do small demonstrations of how their invention will work. It may be useful to have a lawyer on hand during the demonstrations.
