The Preschooler

Get Creative with Marshmallows and Spaghetti

Children naturally have a lot of creative juices flowing through their little brains.  Their imaginations often seem to be on overdrive, especially when we want or need them to be more grounded.    Of course, it is usually best to let kids express their creativeness freely.  However, it can also be very beneficial to help them harness their imaginations into something that is both fun and productive.  For example, both of my boys love the movie Wall-E about a world filled with robots.  They will use any object they can get their hands on and make believe that it is a spaceship or one of the characters in the story.  An activity that I found while researching Wall-E birthday parties is to have children create their own robots or other space equipment out of mini-marshmallows and dry spaghetti.  The kids have to use their imaginations but they are bringing that picture in their minds to life with real objects.

This is just one idea of how make-believe can become reality.  Some other activities you could try include:

• building a fort, house, castle, ship, or any other building or vehicle out of a large cardboard box
• Using a paper bag and any other art supplies to make an outfit or costume for dress-up
• Make a tent out of blankets and camp out under paper stars taped to the ceiling

The possibilities are only limited by your child’s imagination!

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Written by Laura on May 15, 2009