Celebrating Our Imaginations and Our Pilot Year!!!!

This was our cake for our end of the year celebration! 

We made it!!! The Hornung Imagination Chapter had a year full of creative experiences!  During the last month, we worked on games. From field day games to board games and even Kahoot Review Games, students created a wide assortment of fun games!  Some of the games were displayed and utilized during the Hornung Field Day, which gave the students at Hornung an opportunity to see the creative designs and enjoy the fun!

Students drew faces on water balloons for the baby carrier water balloon obstacle course!

We also had a putt putt golf hole that was used for Field Day! 

We even were able to take over the Imagination Foundation's Instagram Feed.

During our last meeting we had a pizza party and creativity showcase.  Family members joined us for the food, games, and short celebration.  Unfortunately, technology wasn't on our side when the video needed to be played.  Here is the short video I created with some of the highlights from our pilot year!

There are great activities to do with common household items.  I tried to give each child a baggie with the materials cards, but I know some kids snuck out before I was able to give it to them.  If you were one of the families that did not get one, or if you would like to see more, check out Destination Imagination Free Printables. 

It has been a wonderful year of developing imaginations through creative play!  I am so thankful for the help and support of the parents of the Hornung Imagination Chapter, especially Mr. Sroufe and Mrs. Gates!  

The Hornung Imagination Chapter will be having a few events in the summer!  One of the events will include some of our members running a Maker Faire Detroit Booth with the MichEd Maker Connection July 25-26 at the Henry Ford Museum!  Another exciting thing will be adding 100 new chapters across the globe for the 2015-16 school year!!!  If you are interested in learning more about bringing an Imagination Chapter to your area, click here! 

Cheers to creativity, developing future innovators, and allowing kids to do what they do best...play! 

Rube Goldberg Highlights

I have so enjoyed engaging in Rube Goldberg themed play over the last 3 meetings!  What a great experience! As you may or may not know, I am a third grade teacher, and I was able to see so many connections to my curriculum!  My favorite experiences were hearing kids debate the possible reasons the marble's lost momentum.  "I think we have to increase the pitch!" one boy said.  The other said, "No, I think we have to change the angle of the blocks."  To see them playing with a bunch of random materials and applying concepts they have learned in school is a teacher's dream!

Here are some highlight videos from this past week!  Enjoy!

Top video courtesy of Mary Putra.

Creative Holiday Fun

I love seeing the ways kids take things and run with it! Today for Imagination Chapter, I went through some of the options for holiday themed crafts, but I also gave them the freedom to create whatever they wanted with the materials.  Looking around the room, they appreciated the choice of freedom.  Q-Tip snowflakes turned into Q-Tip animals, houses, race tracks, and people.  Random scraps from The Scrap Box turned into foam shooters, villages, scarves, and more.  Paper intended for snowflake cutting became the canvas for illustrations.  They took the supplies and made it their own!  Creative Play at its best!

The Q-Tip Station was fun!

The random material station was utilized a lot...and it also got pretty messy.  

Sometimes just the simple act of drawing can be the most gratifying!

Here is an example of the one craft that shown and completed as shown...a wonderful crystal wreath made from fold-top baggies and floral wire! 

To end our meeting, we did an instant challenge to group up and create a carol about creativity.  Here are some of the highlights: 

Time for Creative Play

“I really like this!” a student said to me after the 2nd Hornung Imagination Chapter meeting. 

“What do you really like about this?” I probed.

“I don’t usually have the time to create anything I want.  We got to build for a long time.  Plus, I don’t usually have all the supplies.”

“Well, I’m glad you are enjoying yourself!” I replied. 

I have kicked off the Hornung Imagination Chapter pilot, and we have met for 2 weeks now.  The first week was spent celebrating the Global Cardboard Challenge, and this past week we had fun building towers out of paper and creations out of marshmallows and spaghetti. I will admit, this past week’s meeting was messy! There were spaghetti noodles everywhere and marshmallows that ended up getting squished on the bottoms of shoes and into the carpet.  I definitely have reflected on a better way to do it next time, but like most things in life, you learn as you go. 

It was a busy room full of 33 creative children in grades 2-4, 2 parent volunteers, and 2 college students.  Kids were spread out, some working in partnerships, while others worked individually.  There were tee pees being made, bridges, towers, and villages. Kids were having fun! Many of the creations were not able to make it home and ended up in the garbage, but the kids were OK with it. Imagination Chapter outcome: play doesn’t always have to have a product to take home. 

The above interaction I had with a student came at the end of the meeting when we were cleaning up.  He pretty much captured the intent of this chapter…to set aside specific time for creative play.  To designate a space and time for kids to explore, imagination, and play.  I shared our conversation with his mom, and I laughed that he was impressed with all of the supplies we had.  In week one we played with cardboard and tape, while week 2 we used spaghetti and marshmallows.  She said that before this meeting, they looked at those things as food, and that this program will probably open up their eyes to the things around them and the potential they have in creation. Imagination Chapter outcome: children will be able to see the world in different ways. 

While we were in play mode, one of the creative parent helpers, who has her own clothing design company, had a suggestion to make totem poles.  Then we started brainstorming materials for it.  From our brainstorming conversation, we have plans to make milk jog creations that will stack to be a totem pole.  Perhaps we will even make seasonal ones to switch out throughout the year.  These could be permanent art pieces for Hornung.  Imagination Chapter outcome: Adults can come together to collaborate and inspire the creativity within each other.

The kids were asking me throughout the meeting, “What are we going to do next time?”  There are many things flowing through my mind, and I hope that I will be able to find a way to do all of the things that I have thought of.  But…it all comes down to time…a very precious resource! Stay tuned to our next Imagination Chapter adventures! 

Our First Meeting and Cardboard Challenge Fun!

We had our first meeting today!  33 students from grades 2-4 joined me after school to learn a bit about the Imagination Chapter and indulge in creative play.  I was lucky enough to be joined by Mrs. Giannadrea and Miss Massard, as well as a few parents!  It is great to have extra hands and support! Take a peek inside our meeting!

We are looking forward to having a wonderful year fostering creative play at Hornung.  Based on the applications, there are a lot of awesome things that the children would like to create and have fun with!

Thursday is the Big Day!

Welcome letters will be sent home on Tuesday and our first meeting will be Thursday!  With such a short time in between, I can only imagine parents will have questions.  Our first meeting will primarily focus on getting to know each other and focusing on the Cardboard Challenge.  I am asking all children to bring cardboard (whatever is able to be brought to school.) We will be creating cardboard games and other creations, so it will be a pretty opened ended first meeting. 

As far as future meetings, here is a general agenda, as well as my expectations: 

3:50-4:00 Settle in, snacks, and socialization. 

4:00-4:25: Sharing/Instant Challenges

4:25-5:20 Planning and Creative Play

5:20-5:45: Sharing (If students need to leave at 5:30, that is fine, but I would love to have parents be part of the share time.  In the future, I would even love to have family creative time from 5:30-6:00 possibly) 

*There could be times where we will go on field trips or have other themed meetings. 

• I expect kids to come to the meetings excited to learn, take risks, and explore. 
• I expect kids to work together, but also develop self-regulation and independence.
• I expect kids to be the leader sometimes and bring their ideas for projects to the meetings. 
• I expect kids to be inspired by each other! 
• I expect the kids to record their ideas, thoughts, and progress in their Imagination Notebook each week! 
• I expect the kids to respect the materials, Hornung Elementary, and follow the normal expectations of the school environment. 
• I expect this to be one of the most awesome after school activities Brighton has ever expereienced! 

To have an idea of the types of things the students may do for their first meeting, check out my page on the Global Cardboard Challenge: 

To learn about the true inspiration behind the Imagination Foundation, check out Caine!