02/17/12

Here are more figurines of Care Bears and Belle (Snoopy's girlfriend) that I collected as a child.

Yes, my room was a mess.  I was a pack rat and collected anything small.  I even kept wrappers of candy bars under my bed because I never knew when I would need them for something.

 

I definitely had an imagination as a child.  I used to play with the Styrofoam pieces that came out of boxes.  I pretended they were boats for my Barbie dolls.

I can remember playing on the swings at school, swinging on my belly (which is a no-no now) and my friend and I were riding high in outer space.

I made mud pies (kind of like Mikayla does but not as pretty as hers) and played for hours by myself with my cooking set. 

I pretended I was a teacher.  (Not pretending now, huh?)

I pretended I was a business woman and my phone was my owl calculator.  (Anyone else have one of those?)

I am finding that the longer I teach, and the more technology invades our lives, that kids have less and less imagination.  Instead, they want to be entertained and not use their own brains to do the entertaining.
 
It did my heart good to see some boys playing "Star Wars" on the playground the other day.  When I showed The Sound of Music to my class the other Friday, some of the girls in my class pretended to be the kids of the Von Trap Family.  I want to see more of that in kids.

I see it in Wesley and Mikayla but even they have more of the technology stuff than I ever did so they get caught up in that sometimes, too.  However, they know how to go outside and enjoy the time pretending without demanding something entertain them.

What about you?

What is something you remember doing as a child where you used your imagination to the fullest?