Innovation camp for toddlers ?

With kids around Sunday's are not really boring. They swing from being a lot of work to outright enlightening.

This fateful Sunday is enlightening one :)

While the ladies of the apartment complex are busy arranging the Ganapati on 3rd Sep. I had the charge of keeping the kids busy for few hours. Neighborhood kids between 4 and 12.

After many games, many packets of biscuit and making maggi noodles it was time to sit down in the terrace and have some topic to talk about.

So one 8 yr old boy starts with Quizzing on invention.

The usual quiz book stuff followed.

Who invented electricity - hands go up "Thomas Alva Edison".

Who invented phone - hands go up again " Graham Bell".

Before 15 mins all the book stuff was over. Then the kids started musing on their own "Bullet Train ? " No hand went up.

As the adult in charge I tought them how to get on Wikipedia and get some answers.

But even Wikipedia ran out of answers for the questions those were coming next.

"Who invented belt ?" One younger boy asks.

I said - "someone whose pant was falling down always and being shame shame invented it".

Who invented "Bullock Card?" - Someone who was either lazy to carry stuff around or wanted a less painful way to carry more stuff.

Kids were smart enough to find a pattern.

If something troubles us consistently, we find something to reduce the pain.

This is something very profound. So profound that even grown ups, being paid fat money to innovate, dont understand easily.

I constantly get e-mail requests from our VP asking to nominate Top 10% of the team to attend Innovation camps and listen to successful people in "Star breakfast" program.

It has never mentioned, nominate people who complain the most about a product or a process.

Kids discussion was self sustaining for next few minutes and evolved in to processes.

The last question was "Everyday mama screams at us for drinking milk. Lets find something to reduce that daily pain of drinking milk".

I had to moderate , "Lets learn to like milk and ask for it ourselves. There will be no screaming / scolding. It will be much less painful".

No one appreciated that - that gives me the idea of having a "Think Simple camp for toddlers" one of these days.