SCAMPER • Creativity • AI

SCAMPER + AI: Helping Kids Use AI Tools to Spark Better Ideas

SCAMPER gives children a structure for looking at an idea from different angles. AI can add more possibilities to consider—but the child should remain the person choosing, combining, testing, and improving the ideas.

What is SCAMPER?

SCAMPER is a creative problem-solving framework built around seven prompts:

• Substitute: What could be replaced?
• Combine: What could be joined together?
• Adapt: What could be adjusted for a new use?
• Modify: What could change in size, shape, behavior, or function?
• Put to another use: How else could this be used?
• Eliminate: What could be removed or simplified?
• Reverse/Rearrange: What could be flipped, reordered, or approached from the opposite direction?

These prompts help children generate different kinds of possibilities rather than stopping at the first idea.

Use AI as a brainstorming partner

An AI assistant can respond to SCAMPER-style questions with examples or possibilities. The value is not that the AI chooses the final answer; it can help the child get unstuck and create a larger set of options to evaluate.

Example: reimagining a yo-yo

Substitute: Ask, “What could I substitute for the string in a yo-yo?” The AI might suggest a different connection system. The child can then decide whether the suggestion is interesting, realistic, or worth changing.

Combine: Ask, “What could I combine with a yo-yo to make it more exciting?” An AI might suggest lights, sound, sensors, scoring, or another toy concept.

Adapt: Ask, “How could I adapt a yo-yo for a different environment?” This shifts attention from one familiar use toward new constraints.

Continue through the remaining SCAMPER prompts. The goal is to collect possibilities and then make creative decisions.

Benefits of pairing SCAMPER with AI

• Idea expansion: move past the first idea and consider more alternatives.
• Lower brainstorming pressure: examples can help a child start when the blank page feels difficult.
• Self-direction: children practice asking purposeful questions and choosing which responses matter.
• Creative ownership: the child decides what to keep, combine, reject, or change.

How parents can support the activity

• Co-create the first few prompts until your child understands how the SCAMPER questions work.
• Use typing or voice—whichever makes it easier to focus on the ideas.
• Ask your child why a particular suggestion is interesting rather than simply accepting it.
• Let the child make the final creative choices.
• When an idea becomes a project, test whether it actually works.

SCAMPER still matters without AI

AI is optional. The core skill is learning to deliberately look at an idea from multiple angles and make thoughtful creative choices.

Read the full SCAMPER guide and hands-on activity

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