Creative Content

Teachers seeking a way to provide added enrichment or extensions for their lessons will find this book a perfect match for their classroom. Filled with puzzling elements and open-ended questions for students to consider, "Mind Stretchers" provides students in grades 4-8 opportunities to engage in fun, challenging, and thought-provoking activities in subjects such as math, geography, history, and language arts. Many of the units have students engaging in investigating, writing, drawing, constructing, and composing. The focus of "Mind Stretchers" is on activities that build creative thinking skills and widen students'' perspectives beyond the "correct" response. For example, one activity, "Which Would You Take," asks your students to leave a message in the wilderness telling other members of their camping party that they are fishing. The trick is that they don''t have a pen or pencil, but they do have a coffee pot, matches, a canteen, a flashlight, and a hatchet. After describing how the different objects may be useful, your students are encouraged to sketch out their answer. The book is divided into three sections: notes to teachers, student problems, and a self-check. The subject-area-based activities in this book are self-paced. They are perfect for use by students working alone or in small groups.

R. E. Myers began his career in education as an elementary teacher in Santa Cruz County, California. From there he moved to Los Gatos, California, and became a middle-school teacher and coach. Then he started a quest for higher degrees, which led to moves to Oregon and Minnesota, where he was fortunate enough to become a graduate student of E. Paul Torrance. That association led to a variety of experiences in the field of creative thinking, including the publication of Creative Learning and Teaching, the prize-winning book he co-authored with Dr. Torrance.
Dr. Myers became a college and university professor and simultaneously launched a career as a writer and curriculum specialist, eventually ending up in Oregon as a researcher, filmmaker, and curriculum specialist. In recent years he has concentrated on writing creative thinking materials for primary and intermediate grades and writing materials for the character education curriculum, including his Respect Matters, which was honored with a Teachers Choice Award.