The Year 2s have been studying their teeth in science and were recently challenged to design a toothbrush for children of their own age. The brief was to make brushing teeth a fun activity.

They were given some questions to think about:-

• what will make it different from other toothbrushes for children?
• what shape will it be?
• what will the bristles be made from?
• what will the body of the toothbrush look like?
• what colour(s) will it be?
• will it have a way of telling children how long they have been brushing for?

Ask you can see from the entries below, the children came up with many interesting ideas.

We were lucky enough to persuade Wisdom Toothbrushes UK Ltd to judge the entries and award prizes to the best designs. This helped make the project more real for the children.

We received a lovely letter from the Managing Director of the company, Mr Julian Edge-Partington, which the children were delighted with.

They chose 2 winners, whose designs are shown below:-

Hannah and George were presented with their prizes in assembly. They were clearly very pleased to be winners.

 

In hindsight, I think I should have made the brief much more open, and asked the children to design a product to make teeth cleaning fun. This would have allowed them to be more creative, by not focusing on their existing experience of toothbrushes. Apparently, this is a phenomena which has a name – design fixation.

So, how can we as teachers help to stimulate the creative process without inadvertently limiting it?

Perhaps that will be the next challenge . . .