Go Beyond

Understand Creativity

Audience: All

People often use the word “creativity;” however, they do not know what it means.  In this interactive workshop, we will break through the myths of creativity, explore your views, and discuss how they fit into a framework of creativity as a multi-faceted phenomenon. Finally, we will show you why creativity is an essential life skill.

In this session, you will:

• Understand creativity as a multi-faceted phenomenon
• Create your definition of creativity
• Explore the reasons why creativity is essential in your life, with your children/students, and in your home/classroom
• Outline the next steps needed to bring creativity into your world

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Embody Creativity

Audience: All

With all of the benefits derived from living a more creative life, why not begin enhancing your creative abilities now?

Choose your own creative adventure here! This workshop is designed for YOU! We believe if you want your children and students to be more creative, you must begin by modeling the way.  This workshop will explore your creative strengths and opportunities for growth through a series of interactive exercises.

In this session, you will:

• Uncover your creative strengths and areas of opportunity
• Explore what has helped and hindered you in the past
• Design a plan to continue developing your creative strengths

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Support an Environment for Creativity

Audience: All

Have you heard someone exclaim, :

“That won’t work!”

“I don’t like that!”

“We don’t have the money for that!”

Unfortunately, people are often quick to judge new ideas, which doesn’t create a positive environment for creativity.

In this interactive workshop, we will identify the environments that have cultivated  your creativity.  We will explore the dimensions of the creative environment and create a plan of how to integrate this into your home or classroom. As a result of this workshop, you will:

• Understand the dimensions of a creative environment
• Design your creative environment
• Develop a plan to execute a creative environment.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Integrating Creativity

Audience: All

Teachers and parents frequently approach us eager and excited to bring creativity into their classrooms and homes, but they often have two pressing questions.

1. How do I actually do it?
2. How do I do it when I am already pressed for time?

Fortunately, we have numerous ideas and strategies to help you weave creative thinking into the classroom and home without adding  more hours to  the school day!  And even better, you are likely implementing  some of these in your classroom.

As a result of this interactive workshop, you will:

• Explore a creative thinking skill set to use in your classroom or home
• Work with your own content to integrate creativity into your classroom or home
• Walk away with simple strategies you can employ immediately in your classroom or home.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Teaching Creative Problem Solving

Audience: Educators

How do you design a Creative Problem Solving course??

This interactive workshop will provide you with a simple framework to introduce Creative Problem Solving to your students.  We will explore different divergent and convergent thinking tools and strategies and provide you with resources that will help you integrate these tools into your classroom.

As a result of this interactive workshop, participants will:

• Become familiar with the Creative Problem Solving Framework
• Understand the importance of divergent and convergent thinking
• Learn how to use creative thinking tools
• Leave with many options for including these tools in their lesson plans.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Parenting During a Pandemic

Audience: Parents

Are you a parent who juggles work, child care, and the possibility of online schooling for your children in a world where we cannot predict what lies ahead? As you struggle with the ambiguity and uncertainty, you might find yourself wishing for an “in case of an emergency” guide to help you safely navigate through these turbulent times

This workshop is designed to help you create the emergency parenting guide that your family needs. In this interactive and fast-paced workshop, you will:

• Identify what your family needs now.
• Discover how to stay on track with your parenting goals – even in these trying times.
• Learn how to adapt, adopt, and create strategies that will serve your family’s needs.
• Workaround and through some of the emotional potholes you might be encountering.
• Use the learning cycle to continually grow and improve.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Finding Balance

Audience: All

Do you recall a time when you felt pulled in two different directions? Perhaps you felt compelled to choose between family and friends, work and home, or between personal time or social time. The dilemma you experienced is created by polarities and arises when we have to choose between two equally important options but cannot co-exist. To complicate matters further, ignoring one polarity to pursue the other can only result in significant detriment to your well-being over the long term.

Polarity Thinking is a method that teaches us to find balance and navigate the polarities we cannot escape in our lives. By recognizing these polarities and learning to map them out and chart your course to find the right balance, you will find yourself on the path to a more mindful and satisfying life.

In this workshop, we shall use the polarity thinking approach to understand, map, and navigate the polarities that are currently hijacking our lives.

This workshop will be interactive, and you will have an opportunity to work in small groups on your polarity challenges. Some of the personal polarities that we will work with will include:

• Activity and Rest
• Care for Self and Care for Others
• Stability and Change
• Work and Home
• Planned and Spontaneous
• Individual and Community
• Access and Boundaries
• Candor and Diplomacy
• Tough Love and Gentle Love

Participants will be encouraged to work on building maps and a plan for action that they would like to implement as soon as possible.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Building Resilience

Audience: All

Few of us were prepared for the year 2020. We  struggled to make decisions because so much of life seemed and still seems out of our control; no one can reliably predict what the immediate future holds.  The old normal is unlikely to return, and until the new normal emerges, we have to keep our heads above water.

In this webinar, we will share simple tools and approaches to channel your resilience into finding some solid ground and navigating emotional challenges during these crazy times.

This interactive workshop will require you to roll up your sleeves and grapple with the gnarly challenges we still face as we move beyond 2020. You will learn how to:

• Plan when the future is uncertain and volatile
• Adapt and pivot in response to a rapidly shifting situation.
• Navigate the emotions that might be hijacking you.
• Find help where you might least expect to.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Finding Joy

Audience: All

As a parent or educator, have you ever felt like you were facing an uphill battle alone perhaps being pulled in many different directions? Did you have to choose between family and friends, work and home, or between time for yourself and time for others? The dilemma you experienced is shared by many people, and we each have stories to share. These stories open the doorway to learning from past experiences. Fortunately, we can mine our stories for wisdom and insight by deconstructing and learning from them.

In this workshop, we will share and learn from each other’s past experiences. We will study what works and apply the principles of Appreciative Inquiry to discover ways  to address the following challenge: How might we find joy in our lives as we navigate these uncertain times?

This workshop will be interactive, and you will have an opportunity to work in small groups to share your stories and design new strategies built on past successes.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Making Better Decisions

Audience: All

Have you struggled with  decision-making? Weighed the pros and cons of a decision  and still felt uncertain about your final choice? If you worry about missed opportunities or find yourself second-guessing your decisions –  you are not alone! We all struggle with making decisions.

In this workshop, we will provide you with  a step-by-step process that will help you think through your options deliberately and effectively. You will walk away with a “yes” or “no” decision, leaving you feeling comfortable and confident. This interactive workshop will:

• Take you through a decision-making process that is comprehensive, but not onerous.
• Help you consider how to adapt and refine your options to make them work for you.
• Provide you with a tool that will help you evolve and make better choices in the future.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Raising Adults: Workshop Series

Audience: Parents

Parenting is a journey that is equal parts joy and frustration.  While it can sometimes feel like an uphill struggle, it is possible to tip the balance and make small changes that can create hope and success. For example, one small change requires reframing the objective of parenting from raising children to “Raising Adults.” The modules in this series are designed to introduce simple tools and a framework for “Raising Adults” which is based on more than 30 years of personal research and experience, confirming that even though one size does not fit all in parenting – it is possible for parents to take charge and creatively craft the solutions that work for them.

Workshop One: How do you measure success or progress without a goal? Do you even know that you are lost if you never had a destination in mind? This session offers tools that help with visioning and goal setting within the context of parenting.

Workshop Two: Wouldn’t it be great if someone would hand us a “How to” parenting manual written specifically for our family? While this module cannot provide that manual – it will introduce a flexible and adaptable framework that any parent can use to create their own plan for reaching their parenting goals.

Workshop Three:  Learning from our experiences is the best way to develop and hone our parenting skills. This session is dedicated to learning from our experiences and highlighting the importance of recording, debriefing, and celebrating the experience regardless of whether the outcomes were successful or not.

Workshop Four: Sometimes parenting seems to be a series of challenges and more often than not we find ourselves struggling with the same set of problems repeatedly. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a solution that actually eliminates the problem? This session will introduce a simple 4-step process for assessing the challenge, generating options, crafting solutions and taking action.

Workshop Five: Life and parenting often require us to make difficult choices. For example, we may struggle with balancing work and family, rest and activity, caring for self and caring for others. Parenting also presents us with polarities such as freedom and control or tough love and gentle love.  Finding and maintaining the right balance is easier when we recognize and learn to navigate the polarities in our lives. This session will introduce the essential skills of polarity thinking and mapping.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

Going Beyond: Creativity in Education

This 10-week asynchronous online course is a resource for educators who wish to weave creativity into education. It introduces the five pathways from the Creativity and Education Star framework:

• Understanding Creativity
• Embodying Creativity
• Supporting Creativity
• Integrating Creativity
• Teaching Creativity

The course is designed to serve as a stand-alone or as part of a more comprehensive course, which includes a face-to-face training following the completion of this online course.

The lesson activities are based on best practices for creative approaches to education and are designed to engage and spark curiosity and learning. The objective of this course is to present opportunities for educators to embrace new ways of thinking about creativity, their creative leadership, and ways to ignite creativity in their classrooms. This course also serves to create a community of practitioners who will continue to support and motivate each other.

For more details please contact us at: creativityandeducation@gmail.com

APP: My Sandwich is a Spaceship: Creative Thinking for Parents with Young Children (ages 2-8)

$9.99

Find fun, engaging, and purposeful activities for your children, straight on your phone.

This app will show you how to maximize your children’s creative thinking skills in order to change how they approach life, and ensure that they are ready for this rapidly changing world of the 21st century.

• The app will provide you with: Over 100 activities that you can try out with your child indoors, outdoors, and on-the-go adventures!
• Five creative thinking skills you can integrate into your day-to-day life
• Research-backed information to take a deep-dive into the specific skills to help build lessons for homeschooling, learning pods, or preschool classes.
• A pdf or kindle copy of the book, My Sandwich is a Spaceship, to read in full. Do you have the actual book? We hope you do.

This app Is iOS and Android compatible.

What people are saying about the app:

“I love it! Every time the kids tell me they are bored, they pick an activity. It has been so great.”  ​

“I’m currently organizing a Kinder Pod for the Fall semester with 3 other families and while we are hiring a caregiver to manage and work with our kids, I want to make sure that non-school activities are both fun and purposeful. This app was very helpful in planning both short and longer-term ideas.”

APP: Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of your Curriculum

$9.99

Find engaging activities for introducing creative thinking to your students, right on your phone.

This app will show you how to foster creative thinking in your classroom? And help you incorporate it into your lessons without falling behind on your curriculum plans?

Creativity is a key skill for your students, both within the classroom and outside of it, so we interviewed more than 100 teachers and creativity experts from around the world to gather their favorite techniques for bringing creative thinking skills into any curriculum. With Weaving’s selection of useful language and 100s of tips and ideas, you will be bringing creativity into your classroom in no time! This app will help you deliberately weave various creative thinking skills into every one of your lessons. And best of all, it won’t take time away from the subjects themselves. From kindergarten through high school, Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum is the go-to app for a more creative classroom environment!

We asked educators who used this app how they use it? They responded with:

“Love that there are sooo many activities under each of the skills – this allows a teacher to have plenty of possibilities and therefore makes this a great  resource!”

“When planning content for the following week, or when I’m in a pinch and need a creative activity on the fly in my classroom!”

“I will definitely use this when I have kids of my own. I will use it now to get ideas for activities when I’m teaching adults and children.”

Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum

What is creativity? How can you foster it in your classroom? And how can you incorporate it into your lessons without falling behind on your curriculum plans? Don’t worry – the answer is within these pages!

Creativity is a key skill for your students, both within the classroom and outside of it, so we interviewed more than 100 teachers and creativity experts from around the world to gather their favorite techniques for bringing creative thinking skills into any curriculum. With Weaving’s selection of useful language and over 1000 tips and ideas, you will be bringing creativity into your classroom in no time! This book will help you deliberately weave various creative thinking skills into every one of your lessons. And best of all, it won’t take time away from the subjects themselves. From kindergarten through high school,

Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum is the go-to book for a more creative classroom environment!

My Sandwich is a Spaceship: Creative Thinking for Parents and Young Children

All aboard! Blast off on a magical journey that will enrich you and your child’s creativity! My Sandwich is a Spaceship is a fun and entertaining parenting book that will enhance your child’s creativity, and help you teach your children 10 creative thinking skills essential for success, no matter what they choose to do in the future. These skills will benefit you and your child for a lifetime, and the time to develop them is now. Take a moment and watch your children play… They sing, dance, talk to imaginary friends, and use their creative minds to invent the most wonderful excuses for why they don’t have to go to bed.

Creative thinking is a way of seeing the world, a way of thriving in a constantly changing environment. And most importantly, creativity is a tool for solving all kinds of problems.

Ideas Notebook, Volume 1

$9.99

In today’s world, innovation and creativity are the essential skills that schools, employers, teams, families, and communities are looking for. To help foster your creative thinking we have designed an Ideas Notebook to help you get started on becoming more innovative by developing creative habits.

What is an Ideas Notebook? An Ideas Notebook is a place where you record all your ideas no matter how far-fetched they might seem. When you first see an idea you may not recognize its value. An Ideas Notebook allows you to save the idea until you can come back to polish it and reveal its value.

The Ideas Notebook also includes Imagination Block Busters…these are warm-up exercises that help your imagination stretch and get ready to generate blockbuster ideas! These exercises are not serious challenges but they will help to jump-start your creativity because they will get the right set of neurons firing in your brain. In addition to the Imagination Block Busters, you will also find Insights into Creativity throughout this Ideas Notebook. These Insights into Creativity will help you to understand creative thinking and get better at it.

These activities in the book are designed to enhance skills such as: Being Mindful Remaining Open to Novelty Embracing Ambiguity Engaging your Playfulness Being Optimistic Looking at things in different ways Visioning Sensing Gaps Flexibility Fluency Originality Making Connections Incubation

Teaching for Creativity: A Guide for Bringing Creative Thinking Tools and Techniques into the K-12 Classroom

$19.99

A workbook designed for busy educators who want the tools, the worksheets, and ideas for how they might introduce creative thinking tools and techniques in the classroom.

This book introduces the principles of divergent and convergent thinking as applied across all the stages of the Creative Problem-solving Process.

Every stage of the Creative Problem-solving process is unpacked to highlight its purpose, the accompanying mindset, and tools that can be used to facilitate the objectives of that stage. For every tool, several tips are provided for how it may be incorporated into the classroom.

Educators are free to copy worksheets for use in their classrooms.

Being Creative Card Deck

$29.99

Our research and experience show that an individual with a Creative Operating System exhibits a certain mindset and heartset that contribute to their Being Creative. In our work with educators, we find that one of the key aspects of bringing creativity into the classroom is the need for the educator to model creative behavior. This card deck was designed to facilitate the reawakening of the educator as a creative leader. This deck contains more than 50 different activities and prompts for reflection designed to develop the 9 critical elements of a creative mindset and heartset:

1. Being Open
2. Being Curious
3. Being Original
4. Being Playful
5. Being Optimistic
6. Being Mindful
7. Being Deliberate
8. Being Driven
9. Being Courageous

Imagination on Deck Image Card Deck

$29.99

Imagination on Deck is a playing card deck with carefully curated images that can be used for a variety of activities that are designed to develop the core skills of Imagination:

• Flexibility
• Fluency
• Elaboration
• Originality

This deck can be used with players of any age. In workshops, trainings and group collaborations the activities can serve as warm ups for participants who are about to embark on brainstorming as well as a resource for prompting forced connections to take ideas from mild to wild.

In the classroom, the activities can be used to introduce creative thinking skills to students of any age. The activities outlined in the free downloadable Imagination on Deck PlayBook can be easily integrated into existing lesson plans or could be used to supplement the existing curriculum. The element of play associated with these cards allows for deeper learning and extended practice of creative thinking skills.

The cards can also be customized for a specific language or context by the user. The reverse of each card provides a space for adding words which can also serve as prompts or bring specific vocabulary into play.

Selecting the right deck:

The 10 player deck contains 50 image cards of 2.5X3.5 inches packaged in a rigid playing card box.

The 30 player deck contains 150 image cards of 2.5X3.5 inches packaged in a colorful fabric bag that is custom made and provides a source of income for women in need.

For larger groups of players – we recommend that multiple 30 player decks be used to provide at least 5 cards per player.

Imagination on Deck Image Card Deck

$74.99

Imagination on Deck is a playing card deck with carefully curated images that can be used for a variety of activities that are designed to develop the core skills of Imagination:

• Flexibility
• Fluency
• Elaboration
• Originality

This deck can be used with players of any age. In workshops, trainings and group collaborations the activities can serve as warm ups for participants who are about to embark on brainstorming as well as a resource for prompting forced connections to take ideas from mild to wild.

In the classroom, the activities can be used to introduce creative thinking skills to students of any age. The activities outlined in the free downloadable Imagination on Deck PlayBook can be easily integrated into existing lesson plans or could be used to supplement the existing curriculum. The element of play associated with these cards allows for deeper learning and extended practice of creative thinking skills.

The cards can also be customized for a specific language or context by the user. The reverse of each card provides a space for adding words which can also serve as prompts or bring specific vocabulary into play.

Selecting the right deck:

The 10 player deck contains 50 image cards of 2.5X3.5 inches packaged in a rigid playing card box.

The 30 player deck contains 150 image cards of 2.5X3.5 inches packaged in a colorful fabric bag that is custom made and provides a source of income for women in need.

For larger groups of players – we recommend that multiple 30 player decks be used to provide at least 5 cards per player.