Holiday SCAMPER Brainstorming Activity

This Holiday SCAMPER brainstorming activity uses the SCAMPER method—a powerful creative thinking tool—to encourage students to generate innovative concepts for a new holiday short story. Students will analyze and manipulate existing holiday concepts to invent something entirely original. Use
this story to help students remember the acronym, ”SCAMPER.”

The Legend of Scamper the Cat
Long ago, far away at the North Pole, there were eight famous reindeer… and there was a ninth “reindeer” that you may not have heard of. Her name was Scamper, and she was the most creative reindeer of all—except, she wasn’t really a reindeer at all.

She was a clever cat, who considered herself to be a reindeer at heart. Scamper had a superpower: she could reinvent anything! When the sleigh broke, she didn’t cry — she SCAMPERed a fix! When the elves ran out of toy ideas, she SCAMPERed new ones! And, when Santa needed a new holiday story, Scamper saved the day… by teaching everyone the magic of S-C-A-M-P-E-R! This is the story of how you and your students will harness her innovative spirit.

1. Introduce the concept of SCAMPER: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to Other Uses, Eliminate, Reverse. SCAMPER is a focused brainstorming technique that many entrepreneurs use to help then rethink a problem and to come up with new ideas.

2. Explain that the objective is to create an original holiday story by creatively remixing old ideas.

3. Review SCAMPER: Briefly review the meaning of each letter in the acronym, use Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer as an example.

Substitute: What can be replaced? Substitute Santa’s sleigh with a submarine.
Combine: What can be put together? Frosty the Snowman can save the day.
Adapt: What can be modified/used in a new way? Change the story to take place in a
desert.
Modify: What can be changed, enlarged, or reduced? Make the main character a giant!
Put to another use: How can it be used differently? Use Christmas ornaments as a form
of communication.
Eliminate: What can be removed/simplified? Eliminate the winter weather, making the
holiday a beach event.
Reverse: What can be inverted or changed order? Reverse the gift-giving tradition so
that children give gifts to adults.

4. Choose a Source Idea: Instruct students to choose one familiar holiday story as their initial
source material.

5. Structured Brainstorming: Instruct students to use the SCAMPER Brainstorming Sheet to
address each prompt, using their chosen source idea as the starting point. Encourage them
to be radical, silly, and illogical at this stage—no idea is a bad idea.

6. Write the Story: Students select at least two elements from their SCAMPER brainstorming
to write a new SCAMPERed story.

7. Share: Have students share their new holiday story! They’ve just practiced creativity, opportunity seeking, and thinking like an entrepreneur.

Download the Holiday SCAMPER