I love to encourage my kids to use their imagination. I think that a child’s imagination and the things that they can come up with are some of the most fun and interesting things in the entire world! A child just sees things differently than us adults do. Anyway today I have a few activities that I like to do with my kids. These activities are a great way for you to have fun with your children and really spark their imagination.
Write A Story Together
Me and my kids have a great time doing this. We will sit down with a blank note pad and come up with a fun story between us. One way that we do it is we will take turns saying a line. For example I would say something like Tom saw the dragon at the top of the hill and then he ran towards it and then it would be up to my son to write the next part of the book. This can help if your child has a hard time getting going. Eventually I bet that you will find that your child will start to not want as much input from you and come up with the story themselves.
Write A Comic Book Together
Isn’t this the same as writing a story? Well no, it actually is not. You see in writing a comic book together or if you prefer a picture book, you are able to really bring characters that your child imagines to life. The easy way to do this I found was have one page of text and then on the next page have a picture of what is going on. My son absolutely loved doing this and he would spend ages first creating characters and then putting those characters into different stories. He would also sometimes go back and edit a character he had previously created as something had happened to them in the story.
Make A Movie
Making a movie has never been easier. Is it even possible these days to buy a cell phone without a camera? Anyway again you can get them to write first if you like to come up with the story in a written form. What we would do most of the time would be just come up with the basic idea of a story. With my eldest son 9/10 it involved something to do with Star Wars. But he would have an idea of the story and then he would just pretty much make it up as he went along. You may be surprised to find that your kids will also start to show an interest in how they can edit the movie on the phone or on the computer after.
Creative Playtime
By this I mean getting involved when your kids play with their toys. The best way I can describe this is using my sons Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys. He would sit there on the floor with them making them fight, but one day I made a comment to him that it looked like Shredder had kidnapped April. They are two characters from Ninja Turtles, if you do not know them do not worry about it. Anyway he smiled and then he started to play out a whole scenario that revolved around the sentence I gave him. He got really into it and would ask me for me stories that he could play with his Ninja Turtles toys. Now he does not even ask as he comes up with his own stories and I get a really kick out of watching him play.