Exercise to Spark Creativity and Imagination in Kids

I live to be creative–in my personal life and my career. So, as a grandma, I’m always searching for ways to spark creativity in kids.

Last week, I thought up a new creativity exercise for seven-year-old N.

The Creativity Exercise

The idea came to me when I was cleaning house. I rescued three things from the trash bin that had potential for making into something.

I would challenge N to figure out a use for these items. The grandkids easily construct with LEGOs and Kiwi Crates. But using imagination to make something out of nothing embodies next level creativity.

Nurture a child’s imagination with story cards.

Here’s what I gave him:

• Two molded cardboard inserts used to secure a toner cartridge in its shipping box
• A cardboard tray from a Costco apple box
• An old Apple Watch box

Preparation for this Exercise

1. Select three to five trash items of various sizes, textures, and shapes.
2. Have a few backup ideas in mind for what to do with the trash items, if the child needs help.
3. Try to anticipate the child’s needs for craft supplies, such as glue and paints, to see their ideas through.
4. Now set the items on a table. Invite the child to manipulate the items to assess the creative possibilities.

You will be working with different materials, from ours, but N’s solutions might inspire ideas for what kinds of trash items to select.

A Star Wars-Style Troop Carrier

When I first spied the toner cartridge inserts still in its carton, they gave me a Star Wars vibe. N immediately envisioned a troop carrier to be made by stacking the two inserts, one on top the other. The short end section would be the cab for the drivers. The long middle would hold the troops. The opposite short end would store the fuel.

N set about drawing a schematic for his idea. We glued just the first hinged area on one end so the top could flip up like a clamshell to insert the troops.

N wanted to mount a swiveling canon. I suggested using the cap of my Elmer’s Glue bottle since the white base is sturdy, while the orange cap can turn 360 degrees. N added a plastic straw for the barrel. We used a glue gun to secure the canon in place. At another time, N will paint his troop carrier.

While neither of us had seen such a troop carrier, later, I found a LEGO toy that’s very similar in concept!

The Button Game

For this challenge, N decided the fruit tray could be used to create a board game. We gathered buttons for the playing pieces, counting out black and white buttons, one color for each player.

N made the rules that became so convoluted and complicated that in the end, we didn’t know who had won! But the goal was simply to try to create an original game, which he did. It gave us a fun half hour.

Learn how to create an environment to Inspire Imagination.

If you want to use this idea for a real working game, the simplest would be to use a black/white button instead of a die, toss it, and assign points upon landing, such as 2 spaces for white side up and 4 spaces for black. Then simply give each person one button to advance across the board until the first button returns to home base and is declared the winner.

Or, dump a few buttons in each of a few indentations along the board; whoever lands in that space keeps the buttons. Continue traveling along the board until the first person reaches home base. Then count the number of buttons each person has to determine the winner.

The Apple Watch Box

Apple products come in beautiful, well-constructed boxes but the inserts to hold the products are always glued down so the boxes are quite useless. Whatever ideas we could come up with would have to include the insert.

We decided the watch box could be a holder for the buttons in the button game. Or, it could be used with the troop carrier as a refueling station when laid sideways, or as a futuristic building when standing horizontally.

What Kids Learn

I love trash projects because they teach kids to break out of conventional thinking and see everyday items in new ways. Sometimes, it’s a lesson in simply seeing the unseen, such as appreciating the protective inserts in a box that no one else would have noticed.

Working out the possibilities of these items is an exercise in creativity that costs nothing, but engages a child’s mind in challenging new ways.

Enjoy the exploration!

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