Unpacking Imagination + Inspiring Creativity

On - Cool and interesting

I LOVE the superpowers of your creativity and imagination.

Here are some ideas I found on the Internet I LOVED:

Need A Creative Idea In 10 Minutes? Play With The Stuff On Your Desk

HOW IT WORKS

Ready to get started? “Find seven things on your desk at your studio, office, or home and make something with them. You could make a sculpture, a freeze-frame, a tool, a composition–whatever comes to you,” Birsel explains. “Try to pick random objects, different materials, and varying sizes, and don’t think, just do! You’ll improvise as you go.”

The trick is not to spend more than 10 minutes fiddling with your desktop objects–that’s enough time to experiment with some interesting combinations without beginning to second-guess yourself.

A Blueprint For a New Playground

In an age of childhood obesity and children tethered to electronic consoles, playgrounds have rarely been more important.

Imagination Playground is a playground with lots of loose parts for children to create their own play spaces using their fabulous creativity and imagination.

… Imagination Playground is an interactive, transformable environment that prompts children to manipulate their environment and create a playspace of their own with sand, water and loose parts.

Ways To Encourage Imaginative Play

from http://www.frugal-mama.com/2011/02/9-ways-to-encourage-imaginative-play/

Schedule in free play. Schedule in playground time or an afternoon to just run around climbing trees, making forts in bushes, and searching for roly-polys. Give them supplies for a snowman, or food colors to dye the snow, let them have a picnic on their own, encourage them to use bark and leaves to make houses for fairies
ask them to see how many dandelions they can find (or icicles, special stones, or pinecones)

Provide your kids with open-ended toys. Arts and crafts supplies, dress-up clothes and hats, cars and trains, dolls and animals, legos and building sets are just some of the toys that require a child’s essential input to make them come to life.

Show them how it’s done – use your creativity and imagination. Most of us don’t want to make-believe for hours with our kids — and we shouldn’t have to. But we can just get them started by picking up a stuffed animal or a truck and say in an animated voice, “I want my mommy!” or “Our friend the elephant fell in some quicksand. Let’s go save him!”

Final thought: Imaginative Play Is Not Just For Kids