During recesses in the month of February, our school piazza was filled to the rafters with boxes, cardboard, tape, sticky notes, markers and many children, as they all participated in Richland’s first Innovation Fair. The goal was to create, imagine and innovate using the available materials.
It is believed that creativity is recognized as one of the most critical skills for the next generation. It is identified as the “most crucial factor for future success”.
Children are born with these exceptional talents, but research shows that over time they begin to lose them. We, at Richland, wanted to foster that creativity by giving the children opportunities to explore, design, innovate, collaborate and create structures during the Innovation Fair.
The grade two class was particularly enthusiastic. Taking turns at recesses, the children were very eager to create their structures and became completely engaged throughout the process.
As they reflected upon their experiences, they had these comments:
- “I liked the Innovation Fair because we got to be creative and no one told us what to do. You can just let your ideas out and start building.” – AS
- “It was fun because we got to use tools like tape, scissors and markers, and lots of cardboard. I like what we used.” – LL
- “I liked going to the Innovation Fair. It was fun because we made a big fort. It was fun to crawl through, but it was squished and it kept falling.” – AG
