Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Monday, July 14, 2008

 Cassidy Elementary School fifth-grader Hans Stromberg hopes his simple invention can help eliminate early-morning squabbles about what to wear. His clothes caddy is a series of five plastic hangers with zippered bags attached – one for each day of the school week – to organize a young child’s clothing.

  With sticker tags labeled “Every mother’s helper for well-dressed kids,” Hans’ invention was one of many that Lori Prather’s gifted and talented students came up with for their Invention Convention.

  After wearing their inventors’ caps all year, her Quest students presented their creativity in an after-school showcase.

  “The best ones I’ve seen are very simple,” Prather said of the inventions.

  She had heard at a teachers’ conference that one of the best ways to teach creativity is through inventing.

  “You can just go all over the place with it,” she said, from history, economics and industrialization to artwork and creative writing. “It just visits all of (core content).”

  Prather’s fourth- and fifth-graders studied obscure inventors, researched their topics and reported back, using various means from PowerPoint to drama.

  “As long as they told us the facts and what we needed to know,” she said.

  In one exercise, the students created an ad campaign, packaging, a name and slogan for their own candy bar. After a taste-testing among classmates, the kids made up jingles and shot commercials to sell their new products.

  “It’s kind of the same process as inventing,” Prather explained. “They had to see what’s out there and make it original.”

  Since January, the students worked toward the spring Invention Convention.

  They questioned relatives, neighbors and friends to come up with a list of problems that they could potentially solve, such as how to brown toast evenly. They each picked one, and their creativity blossomed into tangible inventions, such as an after-bath dog dryer.

  The kids also surveyed people to see if their inventions were useful and ask if folks would buy them, and they made graphs and charts to illustrate the results.

  When the big day arrived, the students were well-prepared with their inventions, display boards and explanations for the six judges from the Central Kentucky Inventors Council.

  “What they’ll win is the feedback,” Prather said beforehand.

  During the creative process, things sometimes did not go well for the young inventors the first time around, and some students grew frustrated.

  “Coming up with another way to make it work is the challenge. It’s been good for them,” Prather said.

  “It’s not the product – it’s the process we’ve gone through to get there.”