How to boost kids imagination & creativity

Imagination is an essential part of childhood, an amazing skill that we can take for granted, that can turn the most mundane situation into the biggest adventure. And kids are a natural! But how do we foster this creativity and keep curiosity alive? Here are 7 ways you can boost their creativity:

1. Reading: An essential foundation for lifelong enjoyment and knowledge, alongside a special bonding opportunity together after a busy day. Choose books you genuinely like to read and are intrigued by their story. Or choose open ended books that only include only illustrations, which provide a perfect opportunity to make up a story along the way.
2. Unstructured time: The perfect opportunity to use your imagination! Something that is easy to fill up with screen time these days. You can even get involved too by playing with your child. Use ‘boring’ moments as an opportunity, such as waiting situations like stuck in traffic, at the airport, in line. Fun games to start with include What animal am I? Or I spy! Or crazy rhymes.
3. Storytelling: Kids love hearing stories about you growing up or of when they were a baby. They love hearing about your relatives and old pets. If you need help getting started, you could start by creating a round table where each family member takes turns. One person starts the story, and then as it passes around the table the next person continues.
4. Open ended play: Playing with cardboard boxes, magnetic tiles, building blocks, sand, water, mud modeling clay and playdough provide freedom and encourage experimentation. Model creativity yourself by playing together with your child or fixing something up in the garden or in the kitchen.
5. Open ended craft: Get crazy with crafts! Some great basics to include in your craft corner would be:

• Cardboard rolls from toilet paper or kitchen rolls
• Old egg cartons
• Old buttons
• Crayons, colored pencils,
• Paper – different colors or textures
• Paints – hand, watercolors
• Stamps

Set your kids up in a place they can get messy, and at the end of the day hang up artwork to dry and admire. You can mark this corner by painting it a color, placing a shelf or some pegs.

6. Dress up box: Go together to the thrift shop and pick up some sparkly tops, funny hats, leftover capes, boots, feathers and you have yourself the ingredients for an amazing dress up box! A provider of endless fun and imagination.
7. Get outside: Go for a walk in the neighbourhood, in nature or have a picnic outside. Pack a lunch together and bring a little bag with binoculars, magnifying glass so you can look at the scenery in a different way. Tell your child about how little seedlings became flowers, bushes and trees. Go feed the ducks, spot the animals like you are on safari.

Like Albert Einstein wisely said ahead of his time "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world”.

 How do you boost your kids imagination?