In my brainstorming for a recent kindergarten class I opted to laser cut some construction tiles, similar to K'nex or Kiva planks in their versatility. I emphasized the idea of imagination and creativity, and the "first draft" mentality of prototyping.
I began with Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece and the idea of incompletism. That is, making creative thinking unlimited by not restricting ourselves to perfectionism. Can machines be built that are missing a piece? Would that make the machine unusable or broken? Or could modifications be made? It was an interesting discussion, though in retrospect most kids would have preferred spending much more time playing with the tiles than considering the legitimacy of perfectionism!
