Book guide: Here comes Inventor Johanna!
Do you like inventions?
InventorJohanna can invent everything! But there is a very grumpy uncle where Johanna lives. Why is he so mad and will her new invention succeed?
Questions about inventions
Johanna will become the world's best inventor. What does it mean to be an "inventor" or to "invent"? What do you think seems the most fun to invent? What seems most difficult?
Why do you think people invent things? Do you know of an invention that someone has made?
Exercise! Inventions are answers to problems. Talk with the children about things they don't think work or are complicated. Write them down or draw them. Figure out together how you could solve the problems. For creativity, it is important not to value as good or bad. A more positive atmosphere is then created where the fun is in focus; it's not about performing, but about giving vent to ideas and daring to create.
Questions about being alone, laughing and exercising
In the book, Johanna shuts herself up when she has to invent, she wants to be alone. Do you want to be alone sometimes? What are you doing then? What do you do if someone else wants to be left alone?
Johanna makes an invention that makes people laugh. What do you usually laugh at? Are there good laughs and bad laughs?
In the book, Johanna talks about training a lot to become the world's best inventor. Why is it that one often has to practice to get good?
Johanna's little brothers think she is good at inventing. What do you think you are good at?
Inventors and identity
When we think of the word inventor, many people see a white man in a white coat or maybe the image of Inventor Jocke pops into your head? Inventing and being an inventor are linked to the idea of masculinity. In the minds of many people, inventions are connected with technology, an area that has long been assigned to boys and men. But inventions are about solving problems. In order to change the norms, we therefore need to give children more examples and role models of which different people are inventors and which different things are inventions.
Here are some examples of smart inventions: The washing machine, kevlar, baking powder, menstrual cup, solar cells, penicillin, microphones and velcro.
Historic inventors
Grace Hopper worked for the US military as a mathematician. She worked with one of the world's first computers (Mark 1) and wrote the computer's first program. The world's first computer program was invented by a woman named Ada Byron Lovelace in the 19th century.
Here are some cool inventors for you to check out:
Dorothy Vaughan, Gladys West, Jean Sammet, Amalia Eriksson, Monica Dahlstrand, Leona Chalmers.
