About this resource
Instead of giving students detailed instructions for every assignment, educators need to allow for flexibility and creativity. The book Not a Box by Antoinette Portis encourages creativity and innovation. In this lesson, teams of students will have the opportunity to create a "not a box" and reflect on the activity.
Curriculum & Standards
Related General Curriculum / Common Core Area
Science, Social Studies
Related Curriculum / Common Core Standard
Kansas College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Literacy Learning Standard 1: Engage in literacy learning through a collaborative and community effort and in an integrated fashion, rather than as discreet skills in isolation.
What students will do
Assesses what knowledge they know during brainstorming in journals.
Engages in the inquiry process by formulating additional questions.
Practices soft skills: group discussion, listening to other's viewpoints, team building
Synthesizes prior knowledge and new knowledge and creates a presentation to share findings
Resources Needed
empty boxes, notecards and/or journals, pencils
Lesson sequence & procedures
Direct Instruction:
The essential question is written on a poster or an overhead screen. Students read the question and journal (on notecards or library journals if they have them) for the first five minutes of class. Essential question: "Often we need help or encouragement to get through the invention process. Who is the one person who helped or encouraged you most as an inventor? In what ways did that person influence your inventing?"
Read What to do with a Box by Jane Yolen and Chris Sheban.
Show the YouTube video for the book "Not a Box" by Antoinette Portis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KXuBcdmktY
Independent Practice: Students will think about and jot down ideas for what they could make with a box. Students will share these ideas with their table teams. Students may want to consider using a book or recent class lesson for their box idea. Students can also sketch an idea of their plans. Share picture of student sample or teacher sample of something created from a box (robot, or another example from Portis book)
Guided Practice: In groups of four or five, students will use one box and misc. craft supplies to create a "not a box".
Closing/Reflection: Student teams share their boxes and reflect on what they learned from the project and what they found challenging. Read The Girl Who Made Mistakes and discuss as a class how the fear of mistakes can limit our creativity.
How learning is assessed
Student teams complete one exit slip per team. The exit slip asks two questions: what they learned from the project and what they felt was challenging.