Imagination is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? I love seeing the imaginations of little ones at work. The creative thoughts of young children are so carefree and limitless. As a teacher, how do you nurture the imagination and creativity of your students? Do you see a connection between a student’s creativity and his or her capabilities?
Thoughtfully,
Diane
I am a huge fan of imagination. Where would be if we had no imagination?? I use puppets and often when reading I just stop and ask what would you do if that happened to you? I let the kids feed off each other by coming up with wilder and wilder things and I make sure that no matter what their answer its ok.
I think creatitivity and imagination go hand in hand. What I see is the children who do not have a imagination often times cannot paint or draw a picture on their own. They are looking for the lines. I find that sad.
Darlene, I wholeheartedly agree! How about the rest of you?
I try to read books that bring about open-ended questions to encourage creativity. I give my students blank sheets of paper & have them draw what they think would happen next, what might happen to a certain book character, what they would do if they were in the story, etc.
I totally agree with Darlene when she says that kids “feed off” of each other and come up with things! 🙂
Besides books, I like to use magnetic shapes & magnetic boards. The students build all sorts of things & describe/explain them to me. In fact, we did that today. It was lots of fun!