Sparking Children's Thinkibility
Mindboggling Questions, Creativity and Curiosity
A day at the beach collecting shells and building sand castles inspires children to make friends with animals like the crabs runing along the beach and to dream up a story about the inquisitive and inventive princes and princesses who live in the sand castle they have just built. Stories help children understand their outdoor …
Explore the learning potential and creative thinking benefits of shifting the way you ask your child questions. Good questions help children to think outside the square, they challenge assumptions and help to spark a desire to explore possibilities. A think dive into the unknown. Children love to ponder over ideas that are a bit silly …
Continue reading "Asking Questions that Open the Possibility Door"
Do trees take the shape of the voices they have heard? That was one question that popped up on a walk when we saw this magnificent old tree with gnarled trunk. A trunk filled with faces and animals. . . Trees are a precious part of our heritage and at the very beginning of our …
Continue reading "Whispering Ancient Trees – Listening to Nature"
I have big eyes. The big eyes help me to. . . Owls are most vocal in Autumn and you can twit-twhoo-ing when you make this craft inspired by owls' big eyes. The big eyes help owls to see in the dark. We made an Autumn Owl robo with several eyes so that it can …
Continue reading "Autumn Owl Robo – Use Biomimicry to Teach Children to Think"
"When everything is not well in the Moominvalley, Moomintroll and his friends heads to the Observatory on the Lonely Mountains". "In the Observatory they are told that the comet will hit the Earth within a few days. Will the Moominvalley survive?" Moomins are plump and making a ballet with dancing Moomintrolls sounds like a real …
I made posters that can be used to support children’s observations when exploring Biomimicry with Young Children. You can put poster up in your home or the classroom and let your child/students add their own observations. You can also add the observations to an imagination task and tell or write a story about what it …
Continue reading "Fabulous Observations to Inspire New Ideas"
Hours of fun! Yet encouraging creativity is sometimes hard work - the world is filled with things that beep and blink and demand children's attention. Here are some of my favourite toys to help unleash imagination and creativity. And yes, you have to get down on the floor and actually playing with them. It is …
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Birthday machine! What a wonderful idea! But what was your first thought when you read the headline? And more importantly can you imagine a fantastic birthday machine? Maybe a machine that turns every day into your friend's birthday. An invisible machine that you can switch on when your friend is sad. Or a machine that …
Delightful inspiration! How do you draw? How do you use crayons and pencils? And could you re-imagine drawing? The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, with the help of Italian design duo Erika Zorzi and Matteo Sangalli of Mathery Studio, challenges everything that we normally link to drawing. And it is done in the most exciting, creative …
Imagination makes the impossible possible! Going Places is an inspiring story about the power of imagination and working together. The bold action-filled imaginative illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds perfectly captures the thrill of flying away on your dreams. Maya is a dreamy artist and she uses parts from the go-kart kits in a different way …
In a previous blog post, I explored the idea with A Museum of Flying Jellyfish. This idea was inspired by a book by Linda Sarah. In the book Mi and Museum City, we meet a Mi and Yu who asks the Mayor for permission to create the most fantastic museums (go here for a review). I …
Like any muscle in our body, imagining needs to be practiced, everyday! The word "imagination" seems to sparkle with possibility. The very word is filled with energy and underneath the letters hide the most surprising and wonderful ideas. A spontaneous search for the absurd, crazy and silly. Creating something in your mind that tickles your …
Like any muscle in our body, imagining needs to be practiced, everyday! The word "imagination" seems to sparkle with possibility. The very word is filled with energy and underneath the letters hide the most surprising and wonderful ideas. A spontaneous search for the absurd, crazy and silly. Creating something in your mind that tickles …
Children learn by embracing the world. They are born with a curious mind and a desire to explore and learn. The dive into the world by watching, tasting. touching and feeling things around them. Awareness of how children learn and discover the world helps us find ways to support their development. Play is a hands-on …
“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there”. Yesterday I browsed in a toy catalog. Yes I found some exciting things, like a bubble robot, LEGO and building blocks, but there were few toys that sparked my imagination. Most of the toys were not open for interpretation and they would not inspire a child to …
A perfect way to spend some time together on a Saturday is to make some drawings together. Take one simple shape and add a dot of imagination. Think diving outside the dot can result in some stunning creations. Look at Eva Markova's graduation project for some inspiration. She was going to make the interior design …
Wow, this is something that sparks kids' imagination! A picture flipbook that turns into a carnival carousel, a shadow puppet show, or a lamp that tells a wonderful story as it spins in midair. As a storyteller, light is important factor. Like a great story, light has moods, shadows, flares, colours, softness and harshness. A …
Do arts teach creativity? A magical sight on a summer day or early evening is that of the shimmering wings of a dragonfly. The delicate form and the fragile see-through wings invite you to imagine what it would be like to see the world from a dragonfly’s point of view. This Chinese Nursery Rhyme …
I love books that inspire imagination in kids. Here are two great books for this. Beautiful OOPS! by Barney Saltzberg is a positive celebration of mistake. Mistake is such a heavy word just like failure (in a previous blog post I used the word Nearling to describe failures). This book is an adventure into possibilities …
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“Are you listening?” “ "Watch were you are going!” “Stop dreaming and. . . “ We spend a lot of time telling children to pay attention. They may be struggling to focus on the task in front of them. Often we do not appreciate the value of daydreaming and reflecting. That reflecting and introspection is …
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Imagine it is summer holiday - the whole family is lying on the grass, staring in the sky and familiar animals appear in the fluffy marshmallows. Cumulus clouds are the best types of clouds for finding shapes. Pattern recognition is an essential part of our life. Children are discovering all sorts of patterns, such as …
Imagination is a basis of all creative activity. Many children are good at imagining things and they easily get drawn, even lost, in their own thoughts. In everyday life, imagination and fantasy refer to things that are not actually true. But look at video below from the site Ice Castles and the line between real …
Just Imagine by Pippa Goodhart Illustrated by: Nick Sharratt Can you imagine being BIG? So big you could take a bath in a swimming pool... or so small that you could sleep in a matchbox! This is the perfect book to encourage children to imagine and feel. Pippa Goodhart’s book engages children’s imagination and helps them to think dive …
Children discover things about their own minds and the minds of others by interacting in the world but also by testing ideas in imaginary worlds. Philosopher and developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik, suggests that children formulate causal maps of the mind. From 2- to 6-years of age, children begin to make connections between emotions and actions, and …
