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INSPIRED TEACHER BLOG
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REDISCOVERING CHILDHOOD
I used to think kids learned everything from the adults in their lives,
but today I am changing my thinking. Today I think adults learn a great
deal from kids, and when protected from danger but left to their own
devices, kids do a huge amount of their learning all by themselves...
Read More.
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Does your imagination need exercise?
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When was the last time you:
- Looked up in the sky and found a cloud the shape of something else (like a face or a car)
- Made something out of paper, clay, or wood
- Watched a wild animal or insect for a few minutes
- Pretended to be somebody else
- Invented a story
- Played in the sand
If you're like most adults, it's been awhile. If you go for years without trying to find faces in the clouds, do you lose your ability to find them? If you haven't dressed up like a princess lately, do you still know how to act like royalty? If you haven't been in a sandbox for years, can you still make a castle?
Can your imagination get "out of shape"?
We think so.
We often think imagination is the territory of creative artsy types and little kids who don't have mortgages to pay and jobs to maintain. But in fact, the ability to use your imagination to invent, synthesize, and create is actually the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy. It's what makes the most of your brain. And these days we aren't giving it the love and attention it deserves, as adults AND as children.
Kids used to spend their summers outdoors inventing their own games, discovering new things in the dirt, coming up with their own social structures amongst peers. Today they spend most of the day in front of the TV, being led through a game that does all the imagining for them.
And as adults we're not much better. As teachers our lack of imagination can be particularly harmful because it means we're not thinking creatively about how to make the learning experience more engaging for our students.
Luckily the time for getting in shape for that swimsuit is also an ideal time to get that old imagination back in working order. And before your class leaves you all alone for the summer, you can enlist their help. In the process, your kids will get the chance to give their own imaginations a work out. Give some of the activities below a try!
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Imagination and Literacy
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 Hands and Feet Storytelling
Students always have fun doing this challenging storytelling exercise. Use it for summarizing, creating, or retelling stories
Tri-ku Poems
This is an extended variation on the traditional Japanese poetic form. The rigid structure of these poems can be comforting to students who fear writing poetry.
Freedom to Write
Now that you're at the end of the year, use up what's left in the room and let kids have fund with their creative literary juices. Put boxes of pens, paper, staplers, magazines, glue, scissors, etc. in the front of the room and give kids several hours, a day or two? to write and illustrate their own books. Don't let them get caught up in the editing process, anything goes. See what happens, and make your own book too!
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Imagination and Teamwork
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 Broken Squares
This activity emulates real-life problem solving, and conflict resolution, as teams work together to reconstruct broken squares.
Building Project
This kinesthetic learning activity can be adapted for a civics lesson, community building exercise, geometry project, or writing prompt springboard. In groups, students are challenged to create the biggest and best building using the materials they are given - the challenge lies in the fact that each group has different materials to work with. What students learn from the activity depends largely upon the questions you ask when you debrief with the class.
Re-envisioning Next Year
Have your students create a new classroom design for you to use next year. As a class choose the design that is most interesting/functional and rearrange the classroom in this way. We know that you usually have to take everything off the walls and clear everything out at the end of the year, but consider having the class design a welcome bulletin board for your next group of students and instead of taking it down, cover it with blank paper for the summer and then unveil it for the new year!
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More Imagination Ideas
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Imagination in kids is important
This article explores the social, emotional, and academic benefits of nurturing imagination in children.
Imagination Play
Scroll down this page a bit and prepare to be wowed by a huge list of imagination activities. Though these are geared towards parents playing at home, with a little teacher creativity you can make them work with your students at any grade level!
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