Here’s a challenge: what kind of game can you create with a paper towel roll, a plastic spoon, tape, pipe cleaners, paper clips, yarn, rubber bands, white beans, a plastic cup, popsicle sticks, and a marble? Any ideas?

Last Thursday afternoon, Doreen Abubakar facilitated the afterschool program called Kids Quest to Invent. She's a volunteer facilitator of the CT Invention Convention, and she comes to the Troup School every other week to lead the program. She gives Troup students in grades 3 to 7 the supplies and one hour to tackle a challenge. At the first class of the spring, students were challenged to make a cup slide down a fishing line and drop pennies at one specific point. Students learn that a plastic cup can be used for much more than simply to hold water. And paper clips are not strictly used to hold paper -- you can straighten one out, and use it to poke a hole in the paper towel roll to create a noise-maker!  Or, you can turn it into a spring that causes the toy to jump. What other ideas are there? Ooh, that’s sounds great, too: tie it to a string and try to hook it onto the straw.