Grade-School Students Learn by Inventing : Education: Montalvo Elementary School teachers give students free rein to solve common problems.

Some of life’s little problems, such as spaghetti that falls off your fork as you twirl, have been tackled, if not quite solved, by pupils at Montalvo Elementary School in Ventura.

About 100 children’s inventions were on display Thursday in the cafeteria, accompanied by the inventors.

“The spaghetti always falls off my fork,” Ephram Austin, 8, said as he demonstrated his power-drill fork.

Designed for the rapid twirling of pasta, it consists of a fork stuck into a power drill. It isn’t perfect yet. It sends spaghetti flying across the room. But Ephram hopes to market the invention one of these days.

“A lot of kids can use it,” he said.

The students were involved in a school program called the Invention Convention. It was invented in 1987 to improve children’s problem-solving skills.

“Instead of just teaching facts and figures, we’re trying to get the children to stretch their minds,” said Marie Atmore, principal of the 510-student school.

The results were an unusual array of contraptions, proving that young minds are capable of extraordinary things, she said.

“Now here is something that I would buy,” said Atmore, pointing to a rubber glove with a sponge attached to its palm. It was designed by Jason Louis, a fifth-grader who couldn’t keep track of his sponge while washing dishes.

Other students found ways to evade unpleasant chores.

Quyen Ha, 9, said she hates to crush soda cans under her feet before putting them in the recycling bin. She invented a can-crusher, a five-pound disc with a hole in the middle that slides down a four-foot pole and crushes the can.

Among the other inventions:

* Snaps that hold a skirt to garters. They keep it from flying up in the wind.

* Velcro strips to hold blankets to bedposts, keeping them off the floor.

* A fairly elaborate device made of two clothespins and a length of wire that turns the pages of a book. Unfortunately, it has to be set up a page at a time and operated by hand, using at least twice the energy consumed in just turning a page.

* A coat-hanger-neck-extender. This is a piece of string used to reattach the severed neck of a coat hanger. Using it lowers the hanger to within a child’s reach.

A model of the winning invention, by Tessa Bennet, 11, was on display. The inventor had thought up an electronic device but hadn’t actually made it. Designed to save children from kidnaping, it would be a transmitter that, when a button was pressed, would call the police.

The judging was done by a panel that included a member of the Ventura Unified School District’s maintenance staff and representatives from the Kiwanis Club, K mart Corp. and the Coca Cola Co.

The winner will be eligible to take part in a national contest in July.

“Sometimes it’s hard to get children to think,” said Cheri Mortimer, a fifth-grade teacher, who organized the event. “This is the best way I could find to get them to use their imagination to solve a variety of problems.”

The public may view the inventions in the school cafeteria today.