Imagination

Thrifting for the Mud Pie Kitchen

This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.  – Joseph Conrad Did you know that yesterday was International Mud Day? One of my fondest childhood memories is pretending to feed my friend Alexandra’s cat the ooey gooey mud pies [...]

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Mud Pie Kitchen: Beta Version

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This may not look like much, but we’ve been testing our mud pie kitchen and getting a fresh perspective on what works. It used to reside in another part of our yard, and I thought that moving it might make it more accesible. And it did!! I fashioned the stove/sink from two wooden crates I [...]

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Fridge Box Imaginative Play

We got a new fridge (!!), and while I’m thrilled with the new appliance, I have to admit that I was almost as excited about the box that it came in. I had to convince the delivery team to save it for me, and was surprised that they seemed shocked by my request. Have they [...]

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Ghosts + the Emergent Curriculum

N is fascinated with Halloween decorations, and with every animatronic witch and 10-foot spider that we see around town she decides that we, too, need to own “that!”. We decorated with some cobwebs, pumpkins, and a 3 foot spider, but apparently that’s not enough! After seeing a ton of ghosts yesterday, followed by lengthy discussions [...]

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Why Creative Thinking?

What will our childrens’ future look like? The world as we know it is changing so rapidly that it’s almost impossible to know what it will look like in just five years, let alone thirty. I saw the movie Social Network this weekend, and was reminded that Facebook has only been around for about five [...]

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Felt Cookies

Lately, a lot of play-acting around here seems to revolve around cooking. We have a slew of play food, but up until last week we had no cookies. When we wanted to bake a batch, the play dough would usually come out.  Not a bad thing — I love play dough — but while doing some [...]

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Easter in August

After Easter we moved some plastic eggs into N’s play kitchen, and every now and then she’ll ask us to hide them in the garden. One of these rogue eggs has been living in our fire pit for the past month (sadly, we haven’t been roasting marshmallows as much as we’d hoped), and she spotted [...]

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Finding Nature with Kids

Outdoor Abacus. Tot Spot, Children’s Discovery Museum, Sausalito Although I grew up in the culturally-rich and naturally-poor concrete jungle of Los Angeles, I had the good fortune of having a wild backyard at my imaginative disposal. On the hillside of our rough-and-tumble yard, my parents thoughtfully installed a playhouse filled with nooks and crannies for [...]

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Fairy Doors

Have you ever spotted a fairy door? Once you see one, your radar will be attuned to them like it might be for ice cream on a hot summer day or your favorite jeans at a basement sale. We’re blessed to live near the a fantastic children’s library,and my daughter and I made a trip there [...]

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