So what you need to do is get a piece of cereal (make sure it is dry), particularly one that is circular (so that you can tie a thread to it). Next get a thread of reasonable length but not too long. Next get a brand new comb or one that is well cleaned and dry.

Tie the piece of cereal to one side of the thread, and tie the other thread to something like a chair, table, or ceiling fan (if it’s low enough to reach).

Now it’s the comb’s turn. What you are wanting to do is ‘charge’ it. This means provide it with an electric charge. It’s easier to do this than you may think. Combing through long dry hair a few times will do the trick, or running the comb through wool many times. This should result in charging the comb.

Ok so the next thing to do is to get the charges to attract and then repel. Charges attract if they are opposite to each other, and repel if they are the same. To get it to attract move the comb towards the cereal. If all goes well the cereal will move towards the comb and try to touch it as you get close. Hold the comb there for as long as it takes for the cereal to move away again.

Now, when you try again, you’ll find that the opposite thing occurs. The cereal will now try and move away from the comb. You’ve done it!

For extra dramatic effect, and to add a touch of humor, have a little script ready to tell the class. Explain, for example, that the comb and cereal were boyfriend and girlfriend. They moved together to kiss each other, but the boy had a very bad breath. So next time the boy tried to kiss the girl, she turned away.

Get your kid to collect used plastic bottles from your house or from your neighbors. Even better, get everyone in your suburb to contribute their used plastic bottles to your kid instead of just throwing them away. Before long he or she will have too many!

Most plastic bottles are largest in diameter at the bottom and gradually decrease towards the top. Find a spot midway between the center and the top of the bottle, just before the diameter starts getting smaller, and cut completely around the bottle. Now you have created a relatively large space. That’s basically all you need to do. But read on…

So now your kid has invented a new type of pot. The best use of this pot is for plants. Now if you and your kid want to take this further, go to your local garden center. Ask someone knowledgeable about plants that propagate easily, reduce soil erosion, and that are effective in capturing and storing carbon. Now get some soil and compost and plant these in your recyclable pots. There’s much more to growing a plant than this, so get some advice from the expert. Who knows, your kid may even be able to start an environmentally friendly project, or even a business out of distributing or selling these recyclable pots with plants that help reduce our carbon footprint.

All you need is a white flower and a bit of food coloring. White carnations are quite easy to find. Take a glass jar or see-through plastic container and fill it with water. Now for the food coloring. Your kid can get really creative ‘inventing’ new color combinations, or you can stick with one color color. Bright colors will give the best results. Now cut a little bit of stem off the flower and place the flower in the jar or container.

You will find that after about 24 hours the color of the flower has changed. The stem has essentially absorbed the food coloring in the water, and the flowers have magically changed their colors.

If this is for a school inventing project, then your kid should be going for maximum visual impact, as he or she will be awarded marks for this. So sometimes it’s a good idea to create multiple different colored flowers. Start off by placing each flower in its own jar with different colored food coloring. At the presentation (make sure its on the day of the presentation, ideally do this as soon as possible before presenting), put the flowers all in one container or jar of normal uncolored water. Now you’ve got a nice looking presentation, and your kid has just invented a new flower!

Now what is a box exactly? It’s just a space, an open space shaped with panels that can be used for virtually any purpose. And that’s the key to this kids invention idea. The idea is to get kids to invent new and original ways to make use of a box. It’s simple and easy, and simplicity is always a good thing.

So start off by holding up a cardboard box, and asking the kids what this can be used for. They’ll generally give you conventional answers (to store books, to move houses, etc).

Now ask them to think of news ways to use a box. Tell them that you want to hear unconventional and new ways to use a box. Make sure that they know that no-one will criticize their answers. People are free to laugh at the answers, but no-one is allowed to say anything bad about them. In this you are providing the kids with the confidence to be wacky, and to use their minds in original ways.

If you get really unusual answers, please post them as comments below. I’d love to read them.

The purpose of this exercise is actually to get the kids to think laterally. To see how something that is normally used or done in one way has the potential to be used in a different way. This is a critical skill to develop in kids, especially since this is the skill most lost when they get older and stuck in traditional modes of thought.

Someone suggested to me that this exercise can almost be used as a warm-up to other exercises on a regular basis. Start the kids’ day with an exercise like this, and use a different object every time. Soon they will be thinking of original uses of everyday things, which will reinforce their skills at lateral thinking.

Now get some scissors (make sure they are safe for kids to use – your local stationary store should sell scissors for children), and have the kids invent a celebrity! All they need to do is page through the magazines and cut out pictures of people.  Then get the kids to cut out different features of the people – the hair, nose, eyes, shirt, etc. Now the really fun part: have them invent a new celebrity by mixing and matching the different features! If you want you can get the kids to stick them into scrapbooks, and share why like their new celebrity invention.

What’s great about this kids invention idea is that it is interactive, and teaches creative skills of seeing objects and things for what they could be, not what they are, by mixing and collating them in new and interesting ways. It also makes cutting out and sticking down into a fun activity (and helps build motor skills in the kids).