Imagination - let's pretend!

We are talking about our imagination and creativity in preschool for the next 2 weeks. On Monday when I introduced the word I had the children talk about what it is when you use your imagination. We ended up acting out a few ways that we can use our imagination, by pretending to be different things, such as a cat, dog, flower, butterfly, tree, etc. One of the first things that I had all of us pretend to be was a cat...and I did it with them! It was so fun to see how creative the children let their minds be as they decided to act out the various objects that we called out. We still have whomever is Line Leader for the day give us a "special way" that we walk up the stairs when it is time for snack and craft/activity time. On this day we walked up like soldiers and came down as robots! These children know how to keep things fun and use their imagination!

We learned sign language for both words imagination and pretend. Here is how to do them:
Imagination - put both hands up on either side of your head. Keep hands open with fingers spread apart, and move your hands in circular motions on the side of your head, like there are a lot of ideas flowing around inside...because there are - it's your imagination!

Pretend - With either hand, cross to opposite side of your face and put your thumb down first and then tap your face with your 4 fingers put together.

We did not do a craft project to bring home today. The children did their mixing, measuring and pouring activity with beans and pasta. I paid special attention to what they were talking about doing, and commended them on using their imagination in this activity as well! We had children pretending to make a cake, make dinner, pouring "sand" at the beach, and many other fun stories.

What can you do at home to make things a bit more creative and a way that your child(ren) can use their imaginations to take something that might be ordinary, and change it up a bit to really make it new and exciting?