Fun Review
Student and Parent Support
Funnovation Challenges are grounded in play and exploration with friends, families and teachers. The first principle is student interest. Students will have the chance to take on leadership and teamwork roles inside and outside of the Fun Saturdays. We hope that the students’ interest and engagement in our activities are enough to motivate other students, staff and family members to join in on the fun! There will be in-class “hooks” provided by all participating teaching staff, but the guiding principle of the Fun Saturdays are word-of-mouth excitement from the students and leading Funnovation planning members. Leadership opportunities will be provided to all students. One major role for those interested, is that of the Funnovator Student Leader. These student leaders will receive extra training and support and become integrated in the weekly carrying out of the activities. We will also rely on these Funnovators to promote the in-class and out-of-class Funnovation connections. The student excitement that we build-up will then transfer into parent excitement and interest to participate!
The second principle of Funnovation is giving parents the perfect opportunity to join in on the fun! Our program will run for free, on Saturday mornings, before lunch. Families can take advantage of our free transportation/carpooling organization and translation services as well. Funnovation’s logistics allow families to enjoy their Saturday morning, but provide and fun and free family activity twice a month. What’s more, we will have school community advertisements posted around the school campus, on the school wide Learning Management System (LMS), sent out in parent emails, run on local TV commercials, and posted in local businesses.
Another important element of Funnovation is the access to innovative resources. If we are to promote the adoption of an innovative curriculum in our classrooms, all school stakeholders must have access to our activities if they are interested. Parents and students will be able to take home exploration activities after each Funnovation challenge. Students will be encouraged to review their experience in class to share with teachers and peers. Parents will be supplied with supportive questions as they play with their children in the extension activities at home. Teachers will be encouraged to adopt the innovative activities and ideas in their classes as well and they can find these resources on the Funnovation website too!
Intergration into the Classroom
Because the foundation of our FUN program is around stakeholder interest, integration into classrooms begins with the people involved. For school-wide adoption, we recognize that administrators, teachers, parents and students are vital to the success of the program. Initially, interested teachers, or Funnovator Teacher Leaders, will guide the integration in their own classrooms. Additionally, they will be able to bring that expertise to their departments to enhance in-school learning experiences. As ideas spread, motivation, interest and success will build which increases chances of possible school-wide adoption, supported by school administration. Newer teachers to the movement may easily bring elements of the FUN program to their classroom by allowing children to share personal experiences with the FUN Saturdays. This will provide opportunities for the teachers to link FUN experiences and strategies to curriculum already taught in content areas, which in turn, will create more student interest. Beyond that, the Funnovation website and resources will provide more support to interested teachers.
The FUN Saturdays are specifically structured to develop, support, and scaffold creative thinking in the real world, both in-school and out-of-school. The program is based on interest and motivation, so each challenge is planned as an authentic experience. Full experience with the Funnovation challenges incorporate a variety of content areas, supporting the transfer of understanding in and across subjects. FUN Saturdays are most successful when they include a variety of participants such as, kids, teachers, parents, administrators, family, community members and guest experts. Because all involved will bring a different set of experiences, skills, and passions, the opportunity to learn from and motivate each other is quite high. As a specific structural strategy, most challenges are linked and will ‘hook’ students through the use of stories or scenarios directly linked to school literature.
This program is designed and expected to grow organically along with interest and motivation. With that said, ‘showing not telling’ may be a more successful approach to school and classroom integration. Artifacts from FUN Saturdays then become highly valuable. Items such as photos, videos, student blogs, projects and word-of-mouth can be used to share and scaffold teachers and administrators not yet involved in the movement.
Connections to Sparks of Genius
Weeks 1-8 of Funnovation challenges provide practice in each of Zig Zag’s eight creative thinking skills. Our suggested other resource to develop creative thinking is Sparks of Genius. Our outlined plan of challenges greatly supports Sparks of Genius’ following skills: observing, imaging, patterning, body thinking, playing. These creative thinking skills are especially age- and socio-emotionally appropriate for our younger, elementary school children.
However, as students develop their creative thinking skills, Sparks of Genius’ creative thinking tools will provide a more appropriate challenge for our students. The following thinking tools are recommended to be built further into the curriculum as students move through the planned, adopted innovation curriculum: analogizing, empathizing, dimensional thinking, transforming and synthesizing.