Innovative Inventors

First graders got valuable experience with design thinking and engineering practices with a recent activity. Their teacher challenged them to think of a problem they saw in the world, then design and invent a tool that might solve it.

These students identified many real-world problems that impact the lives of six and seven year-olds, such as shooting baskets, helping with household chores, care of younger siblings, catching bugs, and even scratching hard-to-reach-itches.

After building a prototype of their invention, they wrote about their design process and presented it to the class. In order to share with a wider audience, the Seesaw app was used to record the video of their presentation and compile all the work into a class blog. Parents were able to view all the presentations and add comments to give feedback.


These innovative thinkers had many original and creative solutions to their real-world problems.