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For grown-ups / Wild Ideas Club
Play is
the practice.
Curiosity, not a verdict.
A little space for kids to make many possibilities before choosing one. Conversation prompts, ten-minute co-play and an honest look at the evidence — without scores or big promises.
Why it is built this way
- Psychological safety first. Children stop offering unusual ideas when unusual ideas cost them something. Nothing here is scored, ranked or shown to other children.
- Divergence is separated from evaluation. Judging while generating shrinks the pile. In the Make challenge, constraint cards deliberately arrive in a later phase.
- Autonomy. Children choose the domain, the prompt, whether to use a timer, and when to stop. Timers are nudges, not tests.
- Ambiguity is kept on purpose. Prompts have no correct answer, so there is nothing to guess at and no adult expectation to satisfy.
- Iterative making. A rough version, then a noticing, then another try. Most prompts end offline with paper, boxes and tape.
- Screen-light by design. Sessions are short. There is no feed, no notifications, no streak to protect.
The Land / NASA story: what we know, what we don't
You may have seen a widely-shared claim that around 98% of five-year-olds test as “creative geniuses” and only around 2% of adults do, based on a test George Land developed for NASA. We use the question behind that story, not its numbers.
What is reasonably established
- George Land and Beth Jarman published the figures in their 1992 book Breakpoint and Beyond, describing a longitudinal look at a group of young children.
- Divergent thinking is a real, measurable construct with decades of instruments behind it (most famously the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking).
- Separately from Land, researchers such as Kyung Hee Kim have reported declines in Torrance scores in US samples over recent decades — a contested but peer-reviewed line of work.
- Across research traditions, conditions like safety, autonomy and permission to be wrong are consistently associated with more original output.
What we should not claim
- The 98% / 2% figures are not a settled scientific finding. We could not locate a peer-reviewed publication of that study, its sample, or its scoring criteria.
- “NASA” framing overstates things: the test was reportedly developed in a hiring/consulting context, not published as NASA research on child development.
- No study of this kind can show that schooling causes a loss of creativity. Age, testing conditions, what counts as a “creative” answer, and cohort effects are all tangled together.
- “Creative genius” is not a category a single test can confer.
So why build this? Not because a percentage told us to. Because practising divergent thinking is enjoyable, low-risk and rarely timetabled — and because children deserve at least one place where an odd idea costs them nothing.
Sources to read yourself
How to respond to what they make
Try saying
- “What made you notice that?”
- “Show me the part that was hardest.”
- “What else could it have been?”
- “What surprised you?”
- “What question do you have now?”
Try skipping
- “You're so talented.”
- “That's the right one.”
- “Which is your best?”
- “Make it neater.”
- “That wouldn't work.”
Conversation prompts, by activity
These invite reflection, agency, observation and alternatives. None of them ask a child whether their answer was correct — there is nothing here to be correct about.
After the Idea Garden
Invite quantity and permission, not the 'best' idea.
- “Which idea came out first, and which one took the longest to arrive?”
- “Was there one you nearly didn't write down? What made you write it?”
- “Which twist card changed your idea the most?”
- “If you had three more minutes, where would you look next?”
- “Did any two ideas want to be glued together?”
After the Seed Jar
Give the child ownership of what they keep and why.
- “Which seed do you keep coming back to?”
- “What made you keep that one instead of the others?”
- “Is there a seed you'd like to grow this week — even a tiny bit?”
- “Would you like to read me one, or keep them to yourself? Both are fine.”
- “Has any seed changed its mind since you planted it?”
After Make
Talk about process and choices, never about neatness.
- “Which part was hardest to build? Show me that bit.”
- “What did you decide to leave out?”
- “What would the second version have that this one doesn't?”
- “Who is this for, and what would they notice first?”
- “What did your hands figure out that your plan didn't?”
After a Beautiful Detour
Treat surprises as information, not as failure.
- “What surprised you? Say it before saying whether it worked.”
- “What did the surprise teach you about how the thing behaves?”
- “If the surprise were on purpose next time, what could it be good for?”
- “What's the smallest next try you could do tomorrow?”
- “Would you like help with the next try, or space to do it alone?”
Body, mind and rest
Notice state without diagnosing it. Rest is part of thinking.
- “Does your brain want moving, quiet, or snacks right now?”
- “Where in the day do your best odd ideas usually turn up?”
- “Want to stop here and come back later? Stopping is a real choice.”
- “Shall we take this outside and think while we walk?”
- “What would make the next ten minutes feel comfortable?”
Instead of praise or a verdict
Evaluation isn't the enemy — it just belongs later. Teachers and parents both spend their days helping children get things right, which is necessary work. This is simply the other half.
- “That's brilliant!”→ “Tell me how you got to that.”
- “You're so talented.”→ “You kept going after the tricky bit — what helped?”
- “That's the right one.”→ “What else could it have been?”
- “Which is your best?”→ “Which one are you most curious about?”
- “Make it neater.”→ “Which part do you want to work on again?”
- “That wouldn't work.”→ “What would have to be true for it to work?”
Ten-minute co-play guides
Ten uses for a brick
10 minutes · Paper, two pens, a timer
- Set 3 minutes. Both of you list uses for a brick. No talking, no commenting.
- Read the lists out loud without reacting to any single item.
- Circle the two strangest on each list — strangest, not best.
- Spend 4 minutes drawing one of the strange ones.
Try saying: “Which one surprised you when it came out of your own pen?”
The worst possible idea
10 minutes · Nothing
- Pick a real everyday problem — the school run, tidying, a noisy room.
- Take turns inventing the worst possible solution for 4 minutes.
- Choose the funniest one and hunt for the useful part hidden inside it.
- Write one sentence describing that useful part.
Try saying: “What's the one grain of truth inside that terrible idea?”
Noticing walk
10 minutes, outside · Shoes, a pocket
- Walk without a destination. Collect or photograph three unrelated things.
- At home, combine two of them into an invention.
- The third becomes the invention's problem to solve.
- Sketch it roughly. Rough is the point.
Try saying: “What did you notice that you'd usually walk past?”
Same prompt, separate pages
10 minutes · Two sheets of paper
- Pick one prompt from the Idea Garden. Sit back to back if you can.
- Draw separately for 5 minutes. No peeking.
- Swap pages. Each person says one thing they noticed — not liked.
- Add one small thing to each other's page, with permission.
Try saying: “One thing I noticed is…”
Detour of the day
5–10 minutes at bedtime · Nothing
- Each of you names one thing that went differently than expected today.
- Say what it taught you before saying whether it was good or bad.
- Name the smallest possible next try.
- Optionally, save it as a Beautiful Detour in the app.
Try saying: “Here's mine first…” — going first makes it safe.
Recommended: sit with your child for their first session. Then let them roam.
Their work, and your control of it
Ideas, sketches, reflections and detours are stored in this browser's local storage on this device. Saved work is not automatically uploaded. The optional AI helper sends the text entered into it to an AI service; keep private details out. There is no account to create. Clearing browser data will delete them, so export first if they matter.
Want the wider argument? Read the public explainer.