8 Tools for Creative Thinking and Play!

*previously published by Carly & Adam 

**This post contains an affiliate link.

Learning through play can engage students by making learning more hands-on and active. We can introduce students to tools that support play-based learning and provide opportunities for students to use these tools throughout the school day and in a variety of ways.

Are you ready to infuse some play-based learning into your classroom? This post will share eight tools (some of which you probably use already) to try with your students, as well as a few quick ideas for classroom use.

1. Play dough

Grab any color of dough and create anything your imagination comes up with. A character from a favorite book, something from nature, or a favorite pet, play dough can be used to create anything. Bright colors and smooth textures make it a playful tool for any classroom. Play dough can also serve as a tool to fidget with or help as a stress reliever.

2.            Cori

If you haven’t tried Cori yet, you are missing out! This unique cardboard kit allows students to build and design vehicles and contraptions or create something completely on their own. Easy to use and sturdy for building, this tool is perfect for a play break or to incorporate into your next STEM lesson. Add some Cori products to your school makerspace or include it as a building tool in your classroom.

3.            Fancy markers

Smelly markers, fat markers. Bold colors or pastels. Glitter pens or highlighters, kids love creating with fancy markers. Offer any kind of marker for a play break and let students imaginations soar! Students can use fancy markers to sketchnote their ideas after reading a story or to draw a graphic organizer to further their understanding. Write their spelling words in rainbow colors or practice counting by 2’s with “bingo daubers”. Markers can be a playful way to highlight a text or just have fun and doodle.

4.            Puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles offer a space for groups to gather and work together. Digital puzzles can be fun too. Learners might also like word puzzles, math-related puzzles, and brain teasers. All types of puzzles can engage learners in different types of play. Consider having an area in the classroom where students can access different puzzles. These can be used during learning centers, free choice time, or even at recess. Better yet, find ways to incorporate puzzles into your content lessons.

5.            Strawbees

These simple straws and connectors can offer hours of fun. In a learning center or for a play break, students can build on their own or use the idea cards that come in the Strawbees kits. Construct a house or even a skyscraper. Build a build or a helicopter. Students can play freely with Strawbees or build to meet a specific challenge.

6.            Sidewalk Chalk

Write your name or your vocabulary words in squiggly rainbow letters. Draw a map or try some hopscotch. A little chalk and an empty sidewalk are an invitation for little kids (and big ones, too) to play. Take is outside to create a Venn diagram or to write math facts. Sidewalk chalk will make any lesson a little more playful.

7.            Specdrums

From Sphero, this hands-on tech tool offers creative kids the chance to make and remix their own music. Add the Specdrum rings to your fingers, then tap any surface to create different sounds and beats. This active technology allows anyone to become a music maker. Students will love exploring sounds with this tool, while others might create a soundtrack of their very own.

8.            Canva

This app isn’t just for graphic designers. Canva is a cool digital tool for making just about anything--slides, posters, or invitations. Creative kids can use Canva’s free platform to explore with colors, images, fonts, and stickers bringing to life whatever comes to mind. Create a story map or an image of your favorite character. Design a brochure of a location you are learning about in social studies. Canva is easy to use and designs can be downloaded and shared.

Want to play?

These aren’t the only tools that promote play in the classroom. You may use different tools depending on the type of play that you want to encourage. Think about any tool that sparks student interest while encouraging them to think in creative and interesting ways.

We can unlock creativity by offering students different types of building materials, tools that encourage movement, or materials that inspire art. All of these will foster a playful mindset in the classroom and encourage your students to engage with others in play!

8 Children's Books That Inspire Play

 *previously published by Carly & Adam

We can inspire playful learning in our classrooms through the activities we plan, the materials we offer our students, and through the books we read. Play can be fostered when we play a game, introduce a fun new tool, or when we offer students creativity challenges.

Students enjoy different types of play. Some will prefer physical play, while others might like creative play. Think about the different ways that you can infuse playful experiences into your classroom.

Books are a great way to provide inspiration and share playful ideas with your students. Any of these books could be a perfect read aloud selection or an introduction to a playful activity that you offer your students.

1. Run Wild by David Covell

This book will prompt students to put down their devices and head outside to explore the outdoors. The sights and sounds of nature are shared in this beautiful rhyming tale. Go outside for a nature hunt, search for insects and animals, or take photographs of plants and flowers. Look at the sky and feel the wind blow. Encouraging outdoor play will open new opportunities for students. 

2. The Paper Kingdom by Helena Ku Rhee

A little boy spends the night in an office building where his parents work. There they pretend they are in the “Kingdom of the Paper King.” The parents tell a story of kings, queens, and dragons, entertaining their son while they clean the office. Students can create with paper too, folding, constructing, and imagining. Paper crowns, thrones, or swords, students can create their own imaginary kingdom right in your classroom!

3. Move! by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Full of different animal movements, this book will get students up and moving. Swinging, leaping, dancing, and climbing, students will have fun trying to do each movement. This book introduces some unusual animals and interesting opportunities to move. Incorporate animal movements for a brain break or as a playful way to line up for lunch. Make your own game where hopping, slithering, and flittering are the way to navigate through the classroom space.

4. How to Find Gold by Viviane Schwarz

Anna and Crocodile head out on an adventure to find gold. Together, they draw a map to find their gold. Crocodile draws and tells a story about pirate ships and sea monsters. They head out to sea on their adventure until they find their treasure. Students will love the chance to create their own map. Trade maps with a friend and see if you can follow their directions to find the riches. Imagine the pirates are after your treasure. Write a creative story to tell what happens. Act out the story. You can even make props and costumes to go with it.

5. Please Bring Balloons by Lindsay Ward 

This story will activate the imaginations of your students. Colorful illustrations of a wonderful carousel and the notes written by a polar bear to a young girl. Together, they fly over the town before arriving at the North Pole for a polar bear party.

6. What If . . . by Samantha Berger

This story will inspire students to write, draw and fold paper to tell stories. The young girl shares the creative ideas she will try: carving her chair into an airplane, painting on her walls, and removing the floorboards. Drawing in the dirt or making shapes in the snow, there is no end to her creative imagination.

7. Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg

A fun book that shows kids that it’s OK to get messy. Vibrant and colorful, our mistakes can turn into something amazing if we open our imaginations. Papers can tear and paint can spill, but there are always new possibilities that come from an oops. What kind of classroom mistakes can we turn into something creative and beautiful? Scraps of fabric, broken crayons, or pieces of cardboard can be transformed into something new.

8. Also an Octopus by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

A playful approach to storytelling, this quirky book about an octopus will make kids laugh while also inspiring them to write their own creative stories or build their own purple spaceship out of found materials, or plan a parade with musical instruments. 

Pick a book!

There are so many great children’s books that inspire play and prompt students to get creative. These books (and so many others) can amplify play-based learning while also focusing on the joy of reading. Silly books, colorful books, and imaginative books are perfect to spark some play in the classroom.

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