Week Two - The Idea Forge
This week we learned how to make and use an Idea Forge. An Idea Forge is a container of strips of paper that have random objects written on them. You shake the container (while doing a silly dance, of course), then pull out two pieces of paper. Lastly, you combine the words and that will be what you create.
An example might be the words “pizza” and “dinosaur”. Combining those words, the children would have to flex their creative muscles to visually depict what a “pizza dinosaur” or “dinosaur pizza” would look like.
This exercise can be fairly daunting - even for adults - since it deals with such abstract thoughts! But this kind of thinking is exactly what graphic designers do when creating logos for businesses.
Dylan (1st Grade) had "Pikachu" and "Singer" so he decided to draw a concert theatre. I like how he used the entire space to build an interesting scene.
"Bear" and "Ice Cream" is what Mariana (2nd Grade) originally pulled. But she took it one step further and incorporated another object: "Tree". I like how she took it upon herself to push even further.
Madelyn (2nd Grade) struggled a little early on, but eventually got into a comfortable groove where the markers and pastels just flowed with her thoughts. This was a warm up exercise.