Early Futures

Imagination Games

It is integral that we purposefully give our child peers tools to keep their imaginations connecting and deconstructing reality and fantasy. When a child can visualize, imagine and challenge the normal understanding of how things work together, they have more control over imagining our future worlds. They also become more comfortable with the diversity of possibilities of futures and dealing with intense change at drastic speeds, both incredibly important elements for a healthy existence. Here are two simple games that we’re integrating into our routines that help strengthen and exercise the imagination.

1. Smash Up (also known as Mis Match Memory)

We use this game during transition times (when a child is going from sitting in a group setting to individual play time), but it can be used at anytime. The child is asked to take two disparate things/objects and put them together into one thing. This game was inspired in opposition to the typical childhood game “Memory.” Instead of trying to find matches, we tried to take mismatching objects and meld them together to form a third.

Here’s examples:
Me: Ok, A. Your two objects are a…. planet and a….. toothbrush.
Child: A toothbrush that is shaped like a planet!
Me: Great idea!

Me: Ok… D. You have a…. eyeball and a…. tree.
Child: An eyeball with a tree growing out of it!
Me: Ohh! Awesome!

It is a simple exercise that instead of categorizing and separating objects, brings them together to form new links and new objects. The children love this game and there is always a lot of laughter. You can expand on this game by having the children drawing a before and after of their objects in the smash up or by telling a story immediately afterwords incorporating their smash up idea. As a child becomes more and more comfortable with mixing two objects, try three… four… five… at once.

2. Imagination Journeys
A great resource for imagination journeys is Put Your Mother On the Ceiling by Richard De Mille. In the book are various “Games” which take a child through a visioning process in their imagination (while their eyes closed). They are incredibly interesting and malleable to various age groups. The child has the opportunity to expand on possibilities that they normally wouldn’t otherwise, becoming more comfortable and capable of dealing with potentially threatening or adverse thoughts/ideas.

Example:
(Text excerpt from book. The leader of the exercise group will read out loud the text, pausing at every “/” in the text, watching for reactions on the faces of the children playing the game to see when they are ready to move to the next sentence. Feel free to try this at home with your child or yourself!)

Mirror

When you look straight into a mirror, you see your reflection. Your reflection looks just like you. What would it be like if your reflection looked bigger than you, or smaller, or looked like somebody else?

This game is called MIRROR.

Imagine that you are standing in front of a big mirror. / You are looking at your reflection, and it is looking at you. / You smile at it, and it smiles at you. / You frown at it, and it frowns at you. / You nod your head at it, and it nods its head at you.

Now you smile at your reflection, but it frowns at you. / You frown at it, and it smiles at you. / You nod your head at it, and it shakes its head at you.

Have your reflection grow bigger, while you stay the way you are. / You grow as big as your reflection. / Have your reflection grow smaller, while you stay the way you are. / You grow as small as your reflection. / Be your regular size, but have your reflection be smaller than you. / Have your reflection say, “I wish I could be as big as you are.” / Tell your reflection to get bigger. / Have it grow as big as you are.

Look away from the mirror. / Look back and see that your reflection has the head of a bear. / Look away. / Look back and see that it is a whole bear. / Have it turn into a girl (or boy). / Have it turn into a boy (or girl). / Have your reflection look like you. / Have it look like somebody else. / Whom does it look like?

Have it look like Father (or you can say parent, etc.). / Have it look like Mother. / Have it look like a teacher. / Which teacher does it look like? / Have it look like an animal. / What animal does it look like? / Have it look like a tree. / Have it look like a rock. / Have it look like a chair.

Have it look like some clothes standing there with nobody in them. / Have somebody in them. / Who is it? / Have your reflection look like you.

What would you like to have your reflection do now? / All right. / What now? / All right. (Continue until there are no more ideas or until it seems appropriate to stop).

What as the name of the game we just played?

(left is A. looking into the mirror, middle is A. frowning and her reflection smiling back, right is A.’s reflection being the head of a bear)

(the way D. had to think while looking in the mirror)

(this is what R. wanted her reflection to do at the end… turn into a woman with a broom and a crossed out heart in the darkness)

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