Creative Lesson Plans: How to teach Creativity and Innovation in Elementary, Middle and High School

CREATIVE LESSON PLANS UPDATE: Sunday October 4, 2020:

Creativity and innovation is more than just about art and business.

When life gives you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade because that’s what they say.

Okay, but what happens when there’s no cliche to follow?

• When happens when life gives you a pandemic and you have a new normal. Now what?
• What happens when you lose your job and need to figure out how to make a living?
• What happens when the world is unfair and you need to change the system?

READ MORE about teaching innovation and creativity

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We need a paradigm shift with how we approach creativity at school. Yes, we need to appreciate the important role of creativity in the arts.

But, we also need to take our creative teaching ideas outside of the arts classroom. The hidden word in “creativity” is to “create”. Our students need to recognize that we constantly create things in life. We create solutions to every day life problems.

As principals, teachers, and educators, we need to help students recognize that creativity is actually a transferable 21st century skill that we need at school, in our relationships, in our careers, and to deal with the unknown.

6 things to include when teaching creativity and innovation in the classroom and at school:

1. Every teacher should be embedding lessons on creativity in their course, not just the art teachers
2. Reframe creativity as an important 21st century competency / learning skill. Not just something we do in art class.
3. Everyone can be creative. We use creativity all the time. (We call it problem solving.)
4. Creativity is a learnable skill and process – we can all have more creative minds! Encourage a growth mindset, strategies and effort.
5. Teach students how to break patterns, observe results, and wonder what if.
6. Explain 4 key concepts of creativity:
   • Creativity is a learnable skill
   • Anyone can become more creative by applying strategies and effort
   • Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.
   • We draw on life experiences and connect them in different ways to come up with new ideas.

Not just the art teachers.

Creativity is an essential 21st century skill because creativity and innovation is about figuring out ways to solve problems and express yourself in new ways.

It’s about connecting the ideas in your head with your life experiences in new ways to overcome obstacles.

But, it’s also about right now:

• Are you worried about how to teach (and assess) students to be more CREATIVE and INNOVATIVE in your class?
• Do you have to evaluate creativity as part of your learning skills or class?
• Do you want your students to come up with their own answers instead of simply copying the teacher example? In any subject?

No problem. We got you!

Whether you call this 21st Century Competency “creativity” or “innovation” or “problem solving”, we’re talking about the same thing: The ability to connect ideas in new ways to have original ideas that have value.

How to be MORE Creative Lesson Plans Table of Contents:

• How do you make students creative and innovative?
  • Learning how to be more creative is a skill that anyone and everyone can work on.
  • We need to be creative to solve problems in life
  • We need to be creative to solve problems at work
• How do you bring creativity into the classroom?
  • Want a FREE sample?
• How do you teach creativity and innovation?
  • The “Do Something Different” creativity challenge:
• How to be more Creative Lesson Plan KEY CONCEPTS:
• Get TWO weeks of How to be MORE CREATIVE LESSON PLANS (learning skills):
  • You get 298 slides / pages in 14 lessons
  • Software Requirements
• SHORT RANGE PLAN: (14 How to be MORE creative LESSON PLANS )
  • Teacher Pro Tips
  • PART 1. EXPERIENCE
  • PART 2. WATCH
  • PART 3. UNDERSTAND
• Here’s what you get in the How to be MORE creative Lesson Plans ZIPPED FILE

CREATIVITY LESSON PLANS:

Encourage creativity and innovation in our students by explicitly teaching them:

1. creativity is more than just for art
2. creativity is a learnable skill – that means we can all become more creative.

By encouraging a growth mindset, a creativity lesson plan should focus on the idea that with hard work, strategies, learning from mistakes, and just tinkering around, we can become more creative.

Despite what some people believe, we can nurture and become more creative, just as we can become better at reading, living healthier lives, and getting back up when we get knocked down (perseverance.)

Who can be creative?

Everybody.

We use creativity all the time in everyday life, but we don’t always think of it as “CREATIVITY” or “INNOVATION”. We think of it in the human mind as the ability to make sense of a problem.

• Finding a solution to a problem
• Figuring out how to do something
• Wondering about stuff

You see CREATIVITY in the business world all the time

Innovation is essential in business:

• Coming up with a new product
• Coming up with a new take on a product
• Coming up with a new way to sell an old product.
• Pivoting your business to deal with Covid-19

In a competitive global economy, our students need 21st century skills that are transferable to any situation.

Are we teaching students to be innovative and creative?

(or are we teaching them that there is only one correct solution to a problem?)

• Can our students enhance and explore ideas in creative ways and bring these ideas to action to meet the needs of a community?
• Can our students use imagination when creating a plan to develop an entrepreneurial project?
• Do our students improve ideas and experiment with ideas to try to solve a real-world problem [in their community?]

Learning how to be more creative and innovative is a skill that anyone and everyone can work on. (Hello, growth mindset!)

This is actually a pretty big deal.

School is kind of an artificial institution that often squishes creativity. We start off in Kindergarten exploring the world and trying out new things.

Then, something happens as we get older.

• We start to learn there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things.
• Some answers are better than others. Usually, school favours the most concise, precise and efficient answers.
• We become afraid to make mistakes. We don’t want to speak out or be different or have our ideas put down.
• There’s pressure to be right, and never wrong. (Hello, fixed mindset.)
• We stop playing. (Creative takes time, wonder, and exploration…)

You might say that school makes excellent workers and employees:

• People who can sit down at a desk for eight hours a day,
• People who raise their hand (or ask permission) to give an answer,
• People who ask to use the bathroom…

Is this what we want to train our human mind to be capable of? How does that mindset help students to make sense of new situations or undefined problems?

We might want our students to be able to “think outside the box” but it’s hard because school is often about being inside the box – for both teachers and students.

• As teachers, it’s easier to mark assignments that have simple questions with simple answers directly from the worksheet. Sometimes, we just need to photocopy a handout package and then quickly correct them.
• For students, school often rewards us if we can play the game of sit quietly, do your work, raise your hand, and memorize facts for tests.

We need to be creative to solve problems in life:

• We keep fighting over the same stuff…
• I just finished school, but there are no jobs!
• I have too many bills to pay!
• We missed our ride.
• why does this keep on happening to me?

We need to be creative to solve problems at work:

• This project is due tomorrow!
• Nobody is buying our product!
• I deserve a raise!
• Uh-oh. They’re downsizing…

So, we need to provide students with explicit strategies to help them be more creative.

Although these How to be more Creative lesson plans were developed initially with middle school students in mind, they can also be modified or adapted for:

• Elementary students
• High school students
• Home-schooled students
• Small business human resources training
• Large corporation human resources training

We can teach innovation and creativity by encouraging a growth mindset and taking your time

This means explicitly teaching students that we can be more creative through effort and strategies.

Watch this short YouTube video about things to know about teaching creativity to your students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythiQXTE1qs

Quick question: The answer is Twelve. Did your question involve math? Probably.

It’s hard to be creative under pressure.

• When you do this “Twelve” activity with your class, you can give them much more time as well as playing multiple rounds so you can look at different strategies to come up with new ideas.
• In the “Twelve” activity, we also give students to judge how “creative” an answer is. Once you’ve played the game a few times, you can start to separate “new variations” with “whoa, I never even thought about that” out-of-the-box variations.

Want a FREE sample?

“Twelve” is one of the activities we have in our How to be MORE Creative Lesson Plan package.

But, you can get it for free here.

Teach students how to break patterns

In life, we often get stuck in patterns.

If we practice breaking patterns, it helps us to have new experiences.

• Observe what happens.
• Observe how you feel.
• When we start to wonder why things happen that way, it might spark a sense of curiosity in you.

What does this have to do with creativity? By experiencing, observing, and wondering, we add moments to our life that might later become inspiration to something new!

Who knows what experiences today will help us to create new ideas tomorrow?

This is an important part of learning how to be more creative and innovative.

We turned this idea about “doing something different” into a fantastic activity to inspire observation, wonder, and creativity…

The “Do Something Different” creativity challenge:

For one week, try a little experiment with your students. Every day, do the following four steps:

1. Do something different (each day.)
2. Observe what happens.
3. Wonder about why things happen that way.
4. Record your thoughts.

Tip: Most people feel nervous when asked to do something new. If you feel this way, try starting with an easier challenge. Sometimes, the more we do something, the easier it gets for our human mind. And, that includes doing new things. You got this!

We provide the Creative lesson plan, handouts, and journal entry handouts in our How to be more Creative Lesson Plan package!

We provide over 2 week of creative lesson plans to do with your class to help students recognize that creativity is a learnable skill and we can all become more creative. 

Creativity is MORE than just being artsy! Creativity is a process that can be taught, and creativity can be assessed.

There are 4 key concepts in our How to be more Creative Lesson Plan:

• Creativity is a learnable skill. 
• Anyone can be more creative by applying hard work and strategies.
• Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. 
• We use life experiences and connect them in different ways to come up with new ideas.

In this package, we:

• Introduce the concepts of Creativity as a learnable skill and help get students into a growth mindset to realize they can be creative in any subject or aspect of their life. 
• Provide several exercises which give students opportunities to try to come up with new ideas that when points in the activity. (I.e. be creative and independently evaluate whether their ideas are “new” and “creative” within the context of the activity)
• Provide a week-long challenge of doing something new every day, and a structured handout package to help students to record their observations. (These journal entries could be used as portfolio samples or assessment data for student writing.)  
• Provide discussion points of 7 YouTube videos showing Creativity in different contexts. 
  • We explore creativity through what musicians have to say about their creative process
  • We explore creativity through what educational and business leaders have to say about creativity and innovation.
  • We provide discussion questions for students, as well as answers from the video for teachers to help guide the discussions.

• Allow for deeper exploration of the concept of “Creativity” by playing with the term using the Frayer Model of understanding 

We are creating all the time, but we don’t always recognize that this is actually creativity and innovation.

• When we’re trying to solve a problem, or
• we have an aha moment and figure out how to do something or
• We connect the dots in a new way… These are all examples of creativity.

Creativity is something our human minds can develop. How do we know this?

• Because there are award-winning musical artists out there that talk about what they’ve learned about creativity and how it requires hard work.
• Because there are educational experts out there that talk about how creativity is something that we can teach and assess.
• Because there are business experts out there that talk about the strategies and habits that super creative people use.

We watched a bunch of videos and selected 7 of them for you to check out and discuss with your class.

Then we constructed a bunch of activities for them to experience “creativity”

Finally, we came up with discussion questions and possible student answers for you to help your students come up with a deeper understanding of creative thinking.

In this 2-week lesson package, students will have the opportunity to:

1. EXPERIENCE activities to explore how we generate ideas, where new ideas come from, and identify strategies that help us be more creative… or shut down creativity…
2. WATCH examples of artists, educational and business experts discuss creativity and how to be creative.
3. UNDERSTAND what “creativity” is by using a vocabulary building graphic organizer (Frayer model) to brainstorm features of creativity, examples and non-examples of creative thinking / process, and finally narrow down essential characteristics of what creativity actually is.

YOU GET 298 SLIDES / PAGES in 14 LESSONS. 

• 256 slides in POWERPOINT and GOOGLE SLIDE format
• 70 page lesson plan PDF with 14 DIFFERENT lessons (45-55 min each.)
• 2 page Double entry Journal handout
• 5 page “Creative Words” activity hand out
• 1 page “Twelve” activity handout
• 10 page “Do something different” Creativity Challenge handout package
• graphic organizer to analyze debate questions (HANDOUT + sample answer key)
• 2 page Vocabulary Building Graphic Organizer
• 1 page Creativity Learning Skills SELF-EVALUATION handout
• 2 page Creativity Review Assessment – What did you learn? (7 short answer questions + sample answer key.)

We just saved you an incredible amount of prep work!

And the slides and handouts look legit good. Just sayin’.

We base this schedule on a 50 minute period and provide around 40-60 minutes of content per lesson.

Depending on your teaching style and classroom dynamics, you may find things go longer or shorter than the suggested times. Possible discussion points are included in some of the slide notes.

TEACHER PRO TIPS:

If you are short on time, cut out some of the videos. We suggest watching:

• Video #1 Creative thinking
  • it gives 5 specific strategies on how to be more creative.
• Video #3b – The second Taylor Swift video clip
  • It’s a short clip where she explains how she is a system of writing down ideas.
• Video #6 Can creativity be taught
  • It clearly explains what creativity is: Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.

PART 1. EXPERIENCE

DAY/LESSON 1 – Introduction to creativity (slides 1 – 29) – 45 MIN TOTAL

• Introduction of Creativity, Imagination, innovation (slides 1-7) – 10 minutes
• Getting into a growth mindset with Creativity (slides 8-24) – 10 minutes
• Why we need creativity (slide 25-28) – 10 minutes
• MINDS ON! Brainstorm strategies to get people to be less creative or more creative (slide 29) – 15 minutes
  • Discuss strategies to be less creative – 5 min
  • Discuss strategies to be more creative – 5 min
  • Double entry Journal – 5 min

DAY/LESSON 2 –  This is a … / Creative Words (slides 30 – 45) – 55 MIN TOTAL

• Review strategies / Introduce Part 1 (slide 30) – 5 minutes
• Activity #1: This is a … – 15 minutes
  • Explain activity (slides 31-35)  
  • Play activity (slide 35)   
  • Reflection:  Strategies to get people to be less / more creative (slide 36)
• Activity #2: Creative Words – Round 1 – 35 minutes  
  • Explain activity (slide 37-41)  – 5 min
  • Work period (slide 42) – 10 min
  • Take up answers (slide 43) – 10 min
  • Review strategies (slide 44-45) – 10 min

DAY/LESSON 3 –  Creative Words (cont) (slides 46 – 49) – 40 MIN TOTAL

• Activity #2: Creative Words –  Round 2 – 40 minutes
  • Review strategies / get set up (slide 46) – 5 min
  • Work period (slide 47) – 10 min
  • Take up answers (slide 48) – 15 min
• REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 49) – 10 min
  • Discussion 
  • Double Entry Journal  

DAY/LESSON 4 – Twelve (slides 50 – 60) –  45 MIN TOTAL

• Activity #3: Twelve –  Round 1 – 45 minutes
  • Introduction (slide 50-56) – 10 min
  • Work period (slide 57) – 10 min
  • Take up answers (slide 58) – 15 min
  • Discuss strategies (slide 59-60) – 10 min

DAY/LESSON 5 – Twelve continued (slides 61 – 69) –  50 MIN TOTAL

• Activity #3: Twelve –  Round 2  
  • Introduction: How to find inspiration from class answers (slide 61-66) – 10 min
  • Work period (slide 67) – 10 min
  • Take up answers (slide 68) – 20 min
  • Discuss strategies (slide 69) – 10 min

DAY/LESSON 6 –  Twelve continued (slides 70 – 85) –  60 MIN TOTAL

• Activity #3: Twelve –  Round 3 
  • How to find inspiration from other places… (slide 70-81) 15 min
    • Inspiration from as the areas of life (slide 70-73)
    • Numbers (slide 74)  
    • Words (slide 75)  
    • Pictures (slide 76)  
    • Household objects (slide 77) 
    • Sports (slide 78)
    • Magic (slide 79)
    • Brainstorm ideas from art / school (slide 80-81)
  • Scoring / Set up (slide 82-83) – 5 min 
  • Work period (slide 83) – 10 min
  • Take up answers (slide 84) – 20 min
• REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 85) – 10 min
  • Discussion 
  • Double Entry Journal 

DAY/LESSON 7 –  Do Something Different (slides 86 – 126) –  55 MIN TOTAL

• Activity #4: Do something different 
  • Introduction – 15 minutes
    • Creativity in Life (slide 86)
    • Fly metaphor (slides 87-97)  
    • Patterns (slides 98-101)  
    • Explaining the Challenge (slides 102-111)  
    • Explain the Handouts / Tracking sheet (slides 112-113)  
  • Brainstorming ideas  – 20 minutes
    • Explaining handout (slides 114-115) 5 min
    • Independent brainstorming (slide 116) 5 min
    • Combine ideas as a class: BIG LIST (slide 117-118) 10 min
  • Explaining Journal Entry (slides 119-125)  10 min 
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 126) – 10 min
    • Discussion
    • Double Entry Journal 

PART 2. WATCH 

DAY/LESSON 8 – Part 2 Videos (slides 127-135) – 50 MIN 

• Do Something Different CHECK-IN #1 (slides 127-129) – 10 min
  • How did it go? (slide 127)
  • What did you do? Observe? Wonder? (slide 128)
  • Next Steps (slide 129)
• Part 2 Video Introduction (slide 130) – 2 minutes
• Video 1 Creative Thinking – 18 minutes 
  • Watch the video (slide 131) – 5 min
  • Discussion – 5 min
    • What is Creativity? 
    • What are 5 strategies to help us be more creative?  
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 132) – 8 min
    • Discussion 
    • Double Entry Journal 
• Video 2 Creativity is a Learnable Skill (David Usher) – 20 minutes 
  • Introduction (slide 133) – 2 min
  • Watch the video (slide 134) – 5 min
  • Discussion – 5 min
    • What is Creativity? 
    • What strategies can help us in the creative process?
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 135) – 8 min 
    • Discussion 
    • Double Entry Journal 

DAY/LESSON 9 – Part 2 Videos continued (slides 127-129; 136-139) –  45 MIN

• Do Something Different CHECK-IN #2 (slides 127-129) – 10 min
  • How did it go? (slide 127)
  • What did you do? Observe? Wonder? (slide 128)
  • Next Steps (slide 129)
• Video 3 Taylor Swift – 35 minutes 
  • Introduction (slide 136) – 3 min
  • Watch the first video 73 Questions with Taylor Swift  (slide 137) -10 min
  • Discussion – 5 min
    • What is creativity? 
    • What strategies about creativity can we infer from how she writes songs?
  • Watch the second video Taylor Swift Interview (Nova FM)  (slide 138) 2 min
  • Discussion – 5 min
    • What strategies about creativity can we infer from how she writes songs?
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 139) – 10 min 
    • Discussion 
    • Double Entry Journal 

DAY/LESSON 10 – Part 2 Videos continued (slides 127-129; 140-146) – 55 MIN

• Do Something Different CHECK-IN #3 (slides 127-129) – 10 minutes
  • How did it go? (slide 127)
  • What did you do? Observe? Wonder? (slide 128)
  • Next Steps (slide 129)
• Video 4 Jay-Z Interview: His Writing Process – 15 minutes 
  • Introduction (slide 140) – 3 min
  • Watch the video (slide 141) -4 min
  • Discussion – 8 min
    • What can we infer about Creativity based on what he says?
    • What can we infer about Strategies about creativity based on how he writes songs?
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 142) – OPTIONAL 
    • Discussion 
    • Double Entry Journal 
• Video 5 TED: The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers – 30 minutes 
  • Introduction (slide 143-144) – 4 min
  • Watch the video (slide 145) – 16 min
  • Discussion – 10 min
    • What are Originals? 
    • Why should we study the habits of Originals?
    • What strategies can help us be more creative?
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 146) – OPTIONAL 
    • Discussion 
    • Double Entry Journal 

DAY/LESSON 11 – Part 2 Videos continued (slides 127-129; 147-149) –  40 MIN

• Do Something Different CHECK-IN #4 (slides 127-129) – 10 minutes
  • How did it go? (slide 127)
  • What did you do? Observe? Wonder? (slide 128)
  • Next Steps (slide 129)
• Video 6 Can Creativity be Taught?  – 30 minutes
  • Introduction (slide 147) – 3 min
  • Watch the video (slide 148) – 7 min
  • Discussion – 10 min
    • What are the 3 parts of Creativity? 
    • What strategy can help us in the creative process?
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 149) – 10 min 
    • Discussion 
    • Double Entry Journal 

DAY/LESSON 12 – Part 2 Videos continued (slides 127-129; 150-152) –  50 MIN

• Do Something Different CHECK-IN #5 (slides 127-129) – 10 minutes
  • How did it go? (slide 127)
  • What did you do? Observe? Wonder? (slide 128)
  • Next Steps (slide 129)

• Video 7 Theory of Creativity – 40 minutes
  • Introduction (slide 150) – 2 min
  • Watch the video (slide 151) – 18 min
  • Discussion – 10 min
    • What is Creativity? 
    • What strategies can help us in the creative process?
  • REFLECTION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 152) – 10 min 
    • Discussion 
    • Double Entry Journal 

Part 3 UNDERSTAND

DAY/LESSON 13 – Vocabulary Builder (slides 153-171) – 50 MIN

• Introduce Part 3 – Understand (Vocabulary Builder) (slide 153)

• Graphic Organizer set up (slide 154-155) 
• Minds on (slides 156-157)
• CONSOLIDATION: Strategies to be less / more creative (slide 158)  
  • Discussion 
  • Double Entry Journal 
• Filling out the graphic organizer (slides 159-162) 
• Revising graphic organizer (slides 163-167)
• Summary (slides 168-171)

DAY/LESSON 14 – Self Evaluation / Review – (slides 172-176) – 50 MIN

• Student Self Evaluation (slide 172-175) – 10 min
• Chapter Review Test (slide 176) – 40 min

THE READ ME file in the PREVIEW file section tells you exactly what you get when you buy this product.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below!

We provide CREATIVE LESSON PLANS:

• a short range plan showing the outline of topics and corresponding slides for 2-3 weeks of lessons.
• a detailed lesson plan (70 pages) for the 14 days / lessons.

We provide HANDOUTS:

• Double-Entry journal graphic organizers for students to take notes on strategies to be more or less creative
• “Creative Words” activity handout with 5 different versions of the worksheet to record words.
• “Twelve” Activity handout for students to record questions with the answer 12.
• “Do something different” Challenge handout package with an introduction page, tracking sheet, brainstorming worksheets, and 2 versions of the journal entry handout
• Vocabulary Builder graphic organizer (to develop a deeper understanding of what Creativity is.)
• Student Self Evaluation of their “Creativity” Learning Skill
• Chapter Review assessment and answer key of possible answers

We provide 3 different versions of the lesson slideshow (176 slides):

• A link to the Google Slideshow so you can show it right away. (Get started in seconds!)
• A link to a version of the Google Slideshow that you can make a copy of the presentation. (Edit the content to fit your exact classroom needs.)
• A Creativity and Innovation PPT Powerpoint file that you can download (PPT) and modify. (Edit the presentation to fit your needs, and use the presentation when the internet is down!)

All of our slides and handouts can be edited and modified to fit your specific classroom needs.

• You can edit the slides in Microsoft PowerPoint and Google slides format
• You can edit the handouts in Microsoft Word. (We also provide PDF format for easy printing)

Heads up Content warning: (Slide 141-142 Jay Z video clip)

The first few seconds of one of the videos we chose (Jay-Z interview clip) has an intro that we skipped for you.

• The 5 second intro from the video uploader, Evrrything Trill shows a black-and-white darkened video clip of a girl in lingerie on a bed. 
• FYI: Trill is an adjective used in hip-hop culture to describe someone who is considered to be well respected, coming from a combination of the words “true” and “real”. (Source: Urban Dictionary)

If you play the video from the slidehow or the link in our slideshow, the video playback is set to begin 6 seconds into the interview and skips the intro entirely.

But, if you search for the video separately on YouTube, it will of course start from the beginning of the video.

What creative lesson plans do you use to help your students to be more creative and innovative?