Below is a long comprehensive organized list of potential creativity exercises you can do with you children at home or in your local neighborhood. We encourage families to explore beyond some of these recommendations. Enjoy!
Brainstorming Challenges:
Brainstorming challenges involve coming up with as many ideas as possible in a short time. This challenge is a great way to get your creative juices flowing and develop a new idea for work or hobbies.
In groups of 2 to 4
Idea generating challenges involve coming up with new ideas for a specific project or task. This challenge can be a great way to develop new ideas for products, services, or marketing campaigns, and can be a useful exercise to help people to develop an entrepreneurial Mindset
In groups of 2 to 4
Brainstorming challenges involve coming up with as many ideas as possible in a short time. This challenge is a great way to get your creative juices flowing and develop a new idea for work or hobbies.
In groups of 2 to 4
- Identify a problem you’re facing and come up with a creative way to solve this problem. (Time Varies)
- Plastic in the oceans - What can we do about it? How can we remove it?
- Space travel - What do we need to survive traveling in space and living on another planet?
- Calculate your carbon footprint - What are some ways you can reduce your carbon footprint and help with climate change?
- What are some issues facing your community? How can you help people in your community?
- What does kindness mean to you? How can we show kindness through our words and actions?
- *Choose a random word and brainstorm as many different ways to use it as possible. (5-10 min)
- *Give each group the name of one of the following items, in 5 minutes, get them to write a list of all of the different uses for that item (5 minutes per round)
- Fork, rubber boots, newspaper, toothbrush, bottle, empty can, sock (missing it’s twin), big rock (size of a fist), long stick (about 5 ft tall), sharp pencil
- *Give each group one of the following words. Each group will think of as many rhymes as possible for each word. Rotate the words in the class until each group has cycled through all four words. At the end, count up the number of words listed by each group. The group with the most points is the winner. (30 min)
- Free, cat, stay, most
- *Rearrange the letters in your name to come up with as many words as you can (15-30 min)
- *Write down 25 things that make you happy, no matter how small they seem. (30 min)
- Come up with 10 ideas for vacation destinations you’ve never been to. (1 hour)
- *Come up with some random acts of kindness (or purposeful!) that you can do around your neighborhood. (Time varies)
Idea generating challenges involve coming up with new ideas for a specific project or task. This challenge can be a great way to develop new ideas for products, services, or marketing campaigns, and can be a useful exercise to help people to develop an entrepreneurial Mindset
In groups of 2 to 4
- Design a new product that would make your life easier. (1 hour or multi-day)
- If you were to start your own money-making business, what would be its goal and what kind of services or products would you be selling? Develop a plan and pitch it to a parent or teacher. (1 hour version or multi-day)
- Come up with a creative way to market and sell a product. (1 hour version or multi-day)
- Start a blog, podcast, or video about something you are passionate about. (Multi-day)
- *Write down ten ideas for a new business or non-profit organization. (30 min - 1 hr)
- Develop plans to start a nonprofit organization. (Multi-day)
- Take a trip to the recycling center and visit the reuse room! How can you use items in the reuse room? Are there items in your house or trash that could go to the reuse room? (1 hour, field trip)
Creative Writing Challenges:
Creative writing challenges involve writing pieces on a specific topic or theme. This type of challenge can help you improve your writing skills and come up with new story ideas.
In groups of 2 to 4
Art / Craft Challenges:
Art challenges involve creating art based on a specific prompt or theme. This challenge can help you experiment with new mediums and techniques and improve your artistic skills. A drawing challenge works in the same way.
In larger groups
Design, Create, or Build Challenges:
In groups of 2 to 4
Photo challenges involve taking photos based on a specific prompt or theme. This challenge can help you experiment with new photography techniques and styles and capture unique moments and memories.
On your own or at home
To spark creativity in your thinking, thought processes, and ideation process. Divergent thinking is a key part of this.
In groups of 2 to 4
Creative writing challenges involve writing pieces on a specific topic or theme. This type of challenge can help you improve your writing skills and come up with new story ideas.
In groups of 2 to 4
- *Select a well known story or movie (e.g. Home Alone) and together in your group, rewrite the ending, with as much details to convince an investor to want to produce it (1 hour)
- Write a short story that takes place in the future. Take turns deciding what happens next in your story. (Multi-day)
- *Start writing a story, but don’t stop until you reach 1000 words. (Time varies)
- Develop a plot (and script) for a short play or movie. (Multi-day)
- *A story chain writing activity to spark creativity (30 min to an hour)
- Players take turns picking a card from the deck
- Whatever card the player gets needs to be included in the next part of their story (they can either write down their part of the story, or say it verbally).
- The next player picks a card, and the process continues.
- Write a story in which the main character has a different personality than you do. (Time varies)
- Make a list of 101 things you love about yourself. (Time varies)
- *Write down 20 random words and come up with a story incorporating all of them. (Time varies)
- *Write a story using only one sentence. (30 min)
- *Write a poem about your favorite place in the world. (30 min to 1 hr)
- Write down 10 things you’d like to change about yourself, then come up with ways to achieve them (1 hr)
Art / Craft Challenges:
Art challenges involve creating art based on a specific prompt or theme. This challenge can help you experiment with new mediums and techniques and improve your artistic skills. A drawing challenge works in the same way.
In larger groups
- Collaborative Art Project-Altered Puzzle: Each student receives the shape of a puzzle piece, and can without any restrictions, make / draw / paint / glue from other form of media (e.g. magazine) a pattern onto their puzzle piece. Students can work on decorating their piece at the school or it can be a take-home assignment.Reference Tacoma Public Library Collaborative Art Project of 2022 (Multi-day)
- Collaborative Mosaic Color study: Each person is given a square piece of paper, and one or two used magazines, scissors and glue, and assigned one “theme” to work on (e.g. A specific color of the rainbow). At the end of the day or during the next period, the group decides how they want to arrange each square into a large mosaic. (Two-sessions, 30-60 min each)
- *Collaborative Doodle Drawings: Each group receives a large piece of paper (30x42) and a bunch of different drawing media (e.g. markers, pencil crayons, pencils, pastels) and are given 20-30 minutes to doodle (see sample here) (20-30 min)
- Collaborative Comic Artists: Each group receives post-it notes and different drawing media. They tell a simple story by taking turns drawing a picture on a post-it.
- Example: Person 1 draws a dog on a raft. Person 2 continues the story by drawing a cat swimming by the dog. Person 3 draws the dog confused by the cat.
- *Draw something without lifting your pen from the paper. (10-30 min)
- *Draw something without looking at your paper. (10-30 min)
- *Draw a character or scene from your favorite book or movie. (30 min)
- Create a piece of art using items from your recycling bin. (30-60 min)
- *Draw a picture or create a work of art using only three colors. (30 min or more)
- Create a piece of art inspired by your favorite song. (30 min or more)
- *Draw or paint something based on your dreams or nightmares. (30 min or more)
- *Draw a picture (e.g. portrait of your best friend) using only shapes and lines. (1 hr)
- Paint an abstract landscape using only shades of blue. (1 hr)
- Create a comic strip about your everyday life. (1 hr or more)
- Take a picture of something you see around you, and turn it into a painting. (1 hr or more)
- Create a piece of art using only everyday objects. (1 hr or more)
- With permission from a parent, redecorate a room in your house using (1 hr or more)
- Items you can find in nature.
- Enlarged prints of photos that you took with your parent’s phone
- Greeting Cards (e.g. Birthday or Holiday), gift wrap, or wallpaper swatches
- Fashion Refurbishment! - Collect unused items of clothes and change their look! (1 hr or more)
- Draw scenarios on post-it notes that tell a short story in 9-10 images
Design, Create, or Build Challenges:
In groups of 2 to 4
- Egg drop challenge (link) (Multi-day)
- Tallest Paper Tower Challenge (last year) Perhaps instead of construction paper, we could give them newspaper or spaghetti noodles? Any other brilliant ideas? (1 hr or more)
- Create a sculpture out of everyday objects. (30 min or more)
- Create a sculpture or design using only recycled materials. (30 min or more)
- *Design a new type of hat and use paper or fabric to create it for yourself or on a doll. (30 min or more)
- Make a fort in your living room using blankets, cushions, and random furniture… (30 min or more)
- Create a fashion line made entirely out of recycled materials. (1 hr or more)
- Design a new room for your house using Minecraft or Lego / other building toys. (1 hr or more)
- Design your dream home. (1 hr or more)
- Construct something out of wood without using any nails or screws. (Time varies)
- Build a model of your favorite city out of Lego bricks. (Time varies)
- Build a bridge to get from one place to another in your house, at a park, across a small stream and test how much weight it can hold. Learn more about different types of bridges to help inform your design - arch, beam, suspension, cantilevered, etc. (Time varies)
- Biomimicry: Observe the animals around your home. What are some special adaptations they have that help them survive? Can you build something to mimic their adaptation? Ex: Birds and wings - design a pair of wings out of recycled material. (Time varies)
- Build a home for insects in a shoebox. What do you think insects are looking for in a habitat? Leave it outside. After a week, check it to see who has moved in! (Multi-day)
- We live in a drought prone area. Design a way to catch and store rainwater! (Multi-day)
- Build a water filter or a solar still! How can you use items in nature or in your house to clean dirty water? (Multi-day)
- Design a solar oven to use the sun’s energy to melt crayons or make s’mores. (Multi-day)
- Build a mini greenhouse to start some seeds! (Multi-day)
- Become a citizen scientist! https://www.miridaelivinglabs.org/seedpileproject - Help scientists study the seed dispersal of native plants in our neighborhoods! (Multi-day)
Photo challenges involve taking photos based on a specific prompt or theme. This challenge can help you experiment with new photography techniques and styles and capture unique moments and memories.
On your own or at home
- Take a picture of something in your home from a new perspective. (5 min)
- Take a picture of something you see out of the window. (5 min)
- Take a picture of something every day for a week. (Low impact, Multi-day project)
- Make an instructional video and send it to ____ (e.g. your cousin or a friend located in a different region) (1 hr)
- Create a short film using only still images. (Multi-day project)
- Trade stuffed animals, action figures, etc. with a friend. Take pictures of the other person’s toy having adventures and share with each other. What does your friend’s toy get up to in your house? Out in the world? What’s the most unexpected thing you can think of? (While also taking good care of each other’s toy and returning them at the end.) (Multi-day)
To spark creativity in your thinking, thought processes, and ideation process. Divergent thinking is a key part of this.
In groups of 2 to 4
- *Come up with 10 different uses for a paper clip. (10 min)
- *Come up with 10 new uses for a coat hanger. (10 min)
- *Design a new type of transportation. (1 hr or more)
- Devise and plan a day entirely devoted to relaxation and self-care (1 hr or more)
Music, dance, food and performance
In groups of 2 to 4
With a friend or a group of friends
In groups of 2 to 4
- *Compose new lyrics to a tune that everyone in your group knows (e.g. Never Gonna Give You Up) (30 min or more)
- Select a genre (e.g. comedy, romance, drama). Write a script for a play and act it out. (Multi-day)
- *Improv game: pushy salesperson. Students will try to sell something that nobody wants to buy. (5 min per student)
- Audio cassette tape, broken umbrella, expired yogurt, old calendar, first generation ipod, dull knife
- *Improvise a story as a group. The first student begins by saying the first line of a story. The next student adds a line to the story that in some way includes or incorporates the first line. Continue to add lines to the story for 5 minutes or until it comes to a dramatic conclusion. (5-20 min)
- *Improv/Variation on Charades: Act out a simple task in as many ways as possible. (Ex: walking a dog, washing dishes, making a cake). Have students pick an activity together and then pull cards at random with different ways to act it out. (5 min per student) Some examples for cards:
- Emotional states: happy, worried, angry, silly, tired, energetic, confused, proud, etc. Other students can guess what the performer is trying to convey.
- Weather: raining, snowing, very hot, very cold, windy, smoky, muddy
- Come up with an original recipe. With the help of an adult, prepare it for your family and friends. (1 hr or more)
- Compose a song with no lyrics (1 hr or more)
- Choreograph a dance routine. (1 hr or more)
- Write a song with only three chords. (1 hr or more)
- Learn to sing a song in a foreign language. (1 hr or more)
With a friend or a group of friends
- Take an impromptu dance class with your friends or family members. (1 hr, Field Trip)
- Ask each friend to write down the name of a food item on a piece of paper. The challenge is to create a recipe that uses all of these ingredients (at least half a teaspoon) and then to prepare it (1 hr or more)
- *Research an important historical writer or orator and read their writing out loud with family or friends. (1 hr or more)
Other Creative Challenges or games
On your own or at home
On your own or at home
- Take on a new hobby or activity entirely out of your comfort zone. (Multi-day)
- With the help of a parent, develop a set of plans for an indoor or outdoor garden and describe your proposed plans with a sketch or drawing. (Multi-day)
- “Like or Dislike” Guessing game. Each participant writes down their likes and dislikes neatly on a piece of paper. One person collects the responses, and puts numbers on each card. Each person then guesses the owner of each page. (1 hr)
- Invent a new holiday, create traditions for it, and try it with some friends / family for a day (Multi-day)
- Invent a new sport. (1 hr or more)
- Dedicate an entire day to being creative – no rules, no limitations. (All day!)
- Spend an afternoon exploring your city or town on foot. (1 hr or more)