Awakening and Cultivating Imagination

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Imagination… It is such a treasure for our children. How do we awaken it and nourish it? How do we help them discover this inner wonder that they carry with them? There are so many ways to awaken our little ones imagination, but there are also so many ways for it to be stolen away from them. Let’s look into imagination together and draw an adventure map to guide our children.

Definition

Imagination (noun)
imag·​i·​na·​tion i-ˌma-jə-ˈnā-shən 
1: the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality
2 a: creative ability
b : ability to confront and deal with a problem : resourcefulness
use your imagination and get us out of here
c: the thinking or active mind : interest
stories that fired the imagination
(Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

1: the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality

Wow! When you think of it, that is quite a feat! To form a mental image of something not present to the senses or never wholly perceived in reality. When we use our imagination we transport ourselves into another world, one where everything is possible because it is not present to the senses. And when you haven’t wholly perceived something in reality it can be anything, really. The scent of a rose, for example, if it has never wholly been perceived then it could smell like anything you want. It could easily become the best smell in the world or the worst one. The possibilities are simply endless, limited only by our power of forming mental images.

2 a: creative ability

Our God-given gift to be able to create! What a wonderful gift it is and carefully we must guard it and nourish it. We are all born with an ability to create and what we hear and see as children enables us to develop, or not, this ability. I remember when I was in Kindergarten not liking to have my hands dirty when painting or playing with play-doh. My teacher told my mother, right in front of me, that I was not creative and would never be. That literally stunned my creativity until I was a Mom with 4 children and I HAD to be creative. It had nothing to do with creativity, and everything to do with the fact that I did not like to get my hands dirty (I still don’t). Our imagination opens the door to our creativity.

b : ability to confront and deal with a problem: resourcefulness

Being resourceful is crucial for the rest of our life. How many situations have we found ourselves in where a little imagination helped a lot? I am not talking about escaping reality but being able to troubleshoot and problem solve. As children, and even more as adults, we are daily confronted with new situations and new questions. Our imagination helps us to understand these situations and to potentially find the answer to these questions. Being resourceful is part of being a well grown human being, we need this ability to live and thrive.

c: the thinking or active mind: interest

The power to form mental images of something not present to the senses brings about curiosity. And curiosity is a crucial ability we need to learn new things and make experiments with what we have learned. All learning should be based on curiosity, nothing should be forced. If we ignite wonder and excitement, we ignite curiosity which then leads to learning. Therefore I claim that all education should stem from curiosity and that we, the parents, have a duty to feed our children’s imagination to ignite their wonder and their excitement.

Picture books

You knew that was coming, right?!? Picture books are the easiest, most wonderful way to awaken imagination in our children. When we sit and read a picture book, our children are in the safest place they know, they are free to be unguarded and fully dive into the story. With this freedom comes the ability to open their minds and awaken their imagination. The beautiful dance of words and pictures helps children to steep themselves into the story. I currently have a four year old who brings me the same story over, and over again: Tanya and the Red Shoes by Patricia Lee Gauch, illustrated by Satomi Ichikawa. Well, this four year old is learning ballet simply from this picture book, she has never set foot in a dance class, nor has she seen any ballet live or on tv. But she can dance and she does! She learns something new every time we read the story and practices it to the best of her ability. She spends hours looking at the pictures. Her imagination has been awakened…

Imagination once awakened

… needs to be fed. In the case of my budding ballerina, providing more ballet material has absolutely mesmerized her. We have been reading more Tanya books, as well as Angelina Ballerina  and the climax was watching The Beatrix Potter Ballet (because we were finished reading all of Beatrix Potter’s stories. Next up is The Nutcracker in December (and yes, she already has her outfit picked out and it does involve a tutu, lots of pink and glitters…). It is a daily source of conversation. Not only has she learned wonderful and beautiful things about the art of ballet, but I have also.

Forages and berry picking

This is just my version of rabbit trails and unit studies. Once a topic strikes at the heart of our child’s imagination we can nourish this desire to learn more through forages and berry picking. Forages are really unit studies on any topic of interest, while berry pickings are the multiple sub topic under the main subject. I created a form on how to build a forage. It is available here.
It does not have to be anything formal, as with my budding ballerina, it was just a question of having the books on hand and making them accessible to her. As well as reading them to her of course.

Adventure Map

How do you create a forage?
– Pick a topic (ballet for example)
– Find a spine, or main living book, most often a chapter book (with an older child I would have done that)
– Find picture books related to your main topic- Jot down any berry picking ideas you might have: music, costumes, positions, etc…
– Write down any other resources you  can think of: movies, an actual ballet, etc…
And there you go, you have a wonderful way of nourishing your child’s imagination.
It can be very simple, or a little more in depth, you decide what you and your child can and want to do. And sometimes it’s even better if you just live it alone and just strew books on the topic around the house…

Finding books

In order to strew books around the house or to build a forage you need to find more books on a topic that you might not know anything about. In order to do that I have multiple trusted sources:
– Books about books such as A Picture Perfect Childhood by Cay Gibson, Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson, Books that Build Character by William Kilpatrick and Gregory and Suzanne Wolfe and Honey for a Child’s Heart and Honey for a Teen’s Heart, both by Gladys Hunt. 
– The Read-Aloud Revival
– Redeemed Reader
– My local library
– Amazon, crazy but true

I hope this helps get you started in awakening and nurturing your child’s imagination. 
Love,
Mattie