Creativity at it's Finest..

This week in lab we took a road trip.....to the Dollar Tree!!

We were given no direction up front other than to be sure to bring a unit plan with us the day of lab.  We knew that we were traveling somewhere to bring out our creative juices, but we had no idea where that would be!

We were each allocated $5, before tax, to find 5 things that would help add to a single unit of instruction.  The unit I brought along was Electricity.  At first I was concerned because I didn't know how to think outside of the box.  I spent the first ten minutes aimlessly walking around just to see what all the Dollar Tree had to offer.  I first picked up a pack of pipe cleaners, thinking my students could practice wiring with those before using actual electrical wire.  I thought this would be a fun, creative thing to bring into the classroom.  However, my attention was then caught by the colored glitter glue.  I really liked the idea of the students practicing before they started wiring with wire, but the pipe cleaners they wouldn't be able to take with them easily.  The glitter glue on the other hand, they would be able to use that to draw on a worksheet where the different wires need connected, and they would be able to take it with them afterwards.  I liked that they would have this example available to go back and refer to, whereas the pipe cleaners would likely be disassembled.

I then went on to pick up a pack of light bulbs and batteries to have for the students when they are learning about an open and closed circuit.  I also picked up an extension cord so that I could demonstrate an open and closed circuit to them.

I was stuck.  I had four items and I didn't know what else to get.  After reviewing my unit plan, I remembered that I was teaching students how to calculate electricity bills.  I picked up a pack of large fake money with intentions of using this to give different students different amounts of money to then determine what appliances they can run that would add up to that total. 

After an hour in the Dollar Tree, I finally felt that I had a few really creative things to bring into my classroom for my students.  I believe that we all had a lot of fun completing this task.  Creativity is important, but it can also break a bank.  It was good to see what all we can get for only a dollar that can be useful in our classroom.