I gave my 3rd graders a challenge: take an ordinary cardboard box and turn it into something extraordinary. I expected boats or maybe fort walls. What I got was pure, unbridled imagination!
Watching my gifted students work was like watching engineers, artists, and storytellers all at once. They didn’t just see cardboard; they saw a gymnastics studio, gingerbread bird house, factory with Amazon conveyor belt, McDonald's happy meal, golf course, cat castle, etc.
One student told me, "It's not a box anymore, it's a doorway."
When we give gifted minds a blank slate and the freedom to fail (and rebuild), they don't just "do the assignment." They recreate the world. I am constantly amazed by their ability to see the "what if" in the "what is."
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