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Student Handout 	Activity 1

Thinking Creatively

Name: ___________________________________    Date: ____________________

Before you start researching a topic it is important to open your mind to new ideas. Many of Canada’s early settlement groups faced a lot of new challenges and used creative thinking to help them survive. Try the creative tasks below.

	Jacques LeCastor

Fluency
coming up with lots of ideas	Put yourself back in time. You are going to a new land and starting a new settlement. Make a list of all of the things a settlement needs to be successful.	
Flexibility
changing or organizing ideas	Place the settlement needs into categories. For example: 

Family	
Community	
Both	

Originality
seeking the unusual	You want everyone to be happy and content in your new settlement. Come up with a plan to make this happen. 	
Elaboration
expanding ideas	Look at your plan for happiness more closely. Write a PMI (Pluses, Minuses, Interesting ideas) to see if your plan is a good one.	
Risk Taking
experimenting with new ideas	Some early settlement groups didn’t think about what their actions would do to the environment. What will you do to make sure your new settlement doesn’t make this mistake?	
Complexity
looking at situations logically 	Plan ahead. Think of at least five challenges your new settlement might encounter. Come up with an action plan for dealing with each. 	
Curiosity
wondering about the options	What would your role be in this new settlement? Why?	
Imagination
reaching beyond the limits of the practical	Imagine that you could go beyond the possible. What would you create or do to improve the early experiences of your settlement group?	

Rubric	Activity 1

Thinking Creatively

Name: ___________________________________    Date: ____________________

Instructions

	Excellent	Good	Fair	Needs improvement
	4	3	2	1

In the box at the end of each line enter the number that best describes your work on this activity.

Fluency: I/We came up with a lot of ideas. 		
Flexibility: I/We organized the settlement needs into categories.		
Originality: My/Our ideas were creative and different from the usual ideas.		
Elaboration: I/We thought through the ideas and added lots of detail.		
Risk Taking: I/We tried out new ideas.		
Complexity: I/We came up with good challenges and good action plans for dealing with the challenges.		
Curiosity: I/We considered a lot of different options during this activity.		
Imagination: I /We came up with neat ideas that might not be practical but they would be interesting and fun. 		

Student Comments

Things Done Well	Things That Need Improvement

	

Teacher’s Comments
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