(Luke's) World of Imagination

There’s a certain little four year old around here that loves to build……and pretend.

  I suppose he’s learned to entertain himself and to embark on his own imaginary adventures mostly out of necessity while his sister and I are working on school. But he’s learning all the while even if he doesn’t realize it.

We love to sit back and eavesdrop on his conversations (with himself) from time to time. He plays all the parts well. One of his favorites is to play out a scene from Fireproof especially since he’s all about fire trucks lately. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll remember the “car on the tracks” scene, where the firemen are attempting a rescue. Well this is his version reinvented.  And believe me, he knows all the dialogue to go with it.

Every day the blocks come out and the building begins. Sometimes it’s in the middle of the kitchen while we’re schooling, sometimes it’s under my feet while I’m getting ready and sometimes just scattered across the living room floor. He knows that we think he’s quite the builder, so he asks us to take pictures……of which we are happy to oblige.

Sometimes he builds castles (with dinosaurs attacking).

Sometimes he just builds houses for “all the peoples and all the families”.

But always he has to declare demolition on his creations. He will spend great amounts of time building them just so-so, only to plow into them afterwards……..and with all the required sound effects.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that if I just leave the kids with some free time (without keeping them constantly entertained), they will get creative. And this is learning at its best (not because of what I do – but what I don’t do……and that’s interfere with their thought process).

So we encourage the building and praise all Luke’s efforts and treat them with utmost importance when he comes running declaring what he’s built. We always make a point to go look (and take pictures because he usually asks).

And speaking of building, Luke loves building his vocabulary too. We get tickled at some of the words he comes out with from time to time. Like the word, apparatus. Yeah, he was using that one last week when Joy was in the hospital. It kind of took us by surprise, especially Joy, who said “I don’t even know what that is”, to which Luke proceeded to explain in the correct context.

But then there are also the words that he’s heard but doesn’t quite get right or confuses with other words. The other day he kept asking me about the bamboo in my purse. I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked him to explain it to me a little more, and when he mentioned getting at the doctor’s office, I realized he was referring to, “tattoo”. (They give out little kids’ tattoos at the pediatrician’s office).

One day while listening to him play while I was getting my makeup on, he was speaking in a tone like an announcer over a loud speaker and declared “Ladies and gentleman……Lightning McQueen broke the world”. I was puzzled until I realize he meant broke the world record.

And of course we kind of encourage that vocabulary building too. You know, telling him things like, “Young man, your vocabulary is actually quite impressive. I do believe it has improved drastically”. :) 

In this world of  arranging“play dates” and keeping kids “entertained”, I think it’s just important to let kids have “time to themselves” to use their imagination. It builds thinking skills which lays the foundation for more structured learning. Besides, it’s just plain fun too.

************************************************************************************

On another note, I’m excited to hear that my furniture has been built and sent to the delivery company. Technically, they have three 3 weeks to deliver it, but I’m hoping to hear from them soon to see when it might be headed my way! It’s hard to believe that I will have new furniture in the near future. That’s very exciting!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the comments! I appreciate it and really need to catch up on my blogging friends. Please don’t give up on me! Have a great day! :)