Spark Your Imagination

Although my boys are very creative and can come up with elaborately detailed stories, adventures, and games on a regular basis, I decided I wanted to look for a way to expand their ideas and help encourage them to both build on their imaginations and develop writing skills.

Spark Your ImaginationI happened to stumble onto Spark Your Imagination Story Starters. Created by a Canadian mom, this product originally began as a set of 50 cards that each had a prompt on it to start the creativity flowing and has now moved mostly to an online app that offers the same. New products are apparently in the works right now, but I thought I’d share about the story starters that are available right now.

I’ve seen a lot of journal prompts over the years, and I was a little worried these would be a simple regurgitation of the same thing. But thankfully, and pleasantly, they were very refreshing, fun, and different.

Although I originally wanted the cards to use as journalling prompts to encouraged writing skills, I’ve since decided that there are a lot of great opportunities to use these sparks throughout the day:Spark Your Imagination Story Starters

  • journalling
  • comic book story creation
  • family dinner time conversation (we can all build it together!)
  • road trips
  • that crazy hour around supper time when I am at my wits end and need to refocus their energy
  • stop motion video topic

So far, we’ve enjoyed our fun story times. They have given us an opportunity to talk about more than school work and computer games. The two cards above were some of our favourites so far.

“Your castle is being attacked by a dragon. How will you protect your castle and yourself?”

Answers here ranged from creating a complex anti-dragon force field system to the complete opposite – piling everything of importance to you onto your very large bed on wheels and push it out the back door to run away…..

“What could you do with a marshmallow other than eat it?”

At first, there were some really interesting synonyms for eat that popped up: devour, inhale, etc. Then the ideas started, such as: Sneak it back to the factory and put it back on the assembly line. It also allowed me to reminisce back to my teen years when I had some marshmallowy adventures. Anyone else remember Chubby Bunny? My personal fave – glow in the dark marshmallow golf targets. Ah… memories.

You can find these cards at store locations all across Canada, or you can go digital and download the app which has all the same 50 thought-provoking story starters (and two more!) plus a button that allows you to convert them all into French! Available in the App Store and the PlayStore. Just look for Spark! with the cute little sun logo.

Lisa Marie Fletcher
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