EYFS Best Practice: All about ... Imagination

We make use of imagination every day and night. Awake or asleep, in dreams and in conversation, we are able to call to mind things that we cannot actually see, feel, hear or smell. Imagination refers to our capacity to form mental images of things that are not present, or which may not even exist.

Playwright George Bernard Shaw described imagination as the 'beginning of creativity'. It is closely linked to play, fantasy, storytelling, poetry and metaphor. Imagination is the means by which we explore possibilities - the ability that makes us creative, adaptable and flexible. Perhaps most importantly, imagination is not something extra to be taught, another area of learning and development to be added to the curriculum, but something that must be a part of all aspects of learning.

IMPORTANCE

It is widely argued that since imagination and fantasy play are such a major preoccupation of young children, they must have a role to play in their development. Although imagination is often seen as closely linked to the arts, it underpins all areas of human endeavour.

Imagination:

- enables us to adapt to change. It enables us to think of possibilities and predict events and how we might deal with them. If we have to make a complaint, we might rehearse the conversation in our minds. Similarly, before any important transition, children act out situations that they might meet - imagining how it is going to feel.

- allows us to communicate or express, modify and understand our ideas and feelings, and those of other people. Three-year-old Zac was being put to bed for the first time by a family friend. He instigated games which involved hiding and being found; pretending that the friend was mum, who had to cry because she had lost her little boy - using his imagination to come to terms with the separation.

- helps children to explore and gain understanding of the world and to increase their understanding of the cultures in which they are growing up. Adults do much the same thing, engaging in imaginative play in the form of soaps, films and plays. They like stories about things that they do, using their imagination to gain insight into the similarities and differences between their own and other people's lives.

- supports problem-solving. It brings to mind possible solutions from which good or workable ideas emerge. Children who have played imaginatively with materials are better able to use them in problem-solving situations. Imagination has an important role to play in helping children to solve social and emotional problems - acting out difficult situations and exploring possible outcomes.

- is used in sports training to encourage athletes to think about success in their chosen field, imagining what that feels like. Similarly, children can and do imagine themselves reading, running fast, climbing to the top of the tree or being a successful scientist. These imaginings help children to become skilled and gain self-esteem.

- Contributes to all areas of learning and development (see box).

DEVELOPMENT

Imagination is the source of thought, and stems from our ability to compare one thing with another. Three-year-old Florence, eating a biscuit, declared, "There's a moon on my plate." She was using her imagination and seeing the biscuit with a bite taken out of it as a metaphor for the moon. Two-year-old David found a twig and called it a wolf. Although at first puzzled, his mother saw that the twig looked very like an illustration of a wolf in one of his storybooks.

Scientists believe that imagination is unique to human thinking but, of course, it is difficult to know whether animals have imagination. Equally, we can't know whether babies can imagine things that are not present. However, as imagination feeds thinking, it is never too early to introduce different textures and shapes into babies' exploratory play.

- Symbolic play

Symbolic play begins, like language, in the second year of life. Imitation is important at this stage. Children may rehearse or practise what they have seen adults or older children doing with particular objects. When they begin to use an object to stand for something else, using a block, for example, as a car, who can judge whether this is the child's innovation or something they have learnt from someone else? Children are not only exploring the world they know but journeying into imagined worlds.

Imagination does not only develop from what children see but also from the wide range of ways in which ideas can be represented. Singing and dancing; rhythm and rhyme; humour and narrative all have a role to play in developing imaginative thinking. They remain important throughout our lives but they are of particular importance in the early years, before children become literate. All too often, the poetic connections and imaginative comparisons which children make are seen as frills, to be set aside in order to get on with teaching what are called basic skills. In reality, these forms of thinking and imagining are the real foundations of learning.

NURTURING THE IMAGINATION

Continuous provision is vital since children can choose props and resources that foster their ideas, or spark new ones:

- The creative workshop. The workshop area should allow children to explore in their own way. Worksheets, templates and models which children are supposed to copy curb their creativity and imagination. This means that there should be:

- different types, colours and sizes of paper;

- a range of mark-makers - pens, pencils, crayons;

- and a choice of materials for sticking, cutting, gluing and inventing. Sometimes an unusually shaped box can spark a child's imagination; or a piece of glittery fabric. This doesn't have to be expensive - find out if there is a scrap project near you.

- Imaginative/role play. This can include small-world play, domestic and dramatic play. It may be indoors or out.

- Lengths of fabric can serve as clothes, bedding, fields or water. Rugs and blankets thrown over chairs, bushes or tables may be used to create imaginary worlds in dens and hideaways, mountains and monsters.

- Jars of conkers, shells, stones, cones, etc can be almost anything - food, money, jewels, rocks. Or they may simply be used to construct interesting patterns, created by children's fertile imaginations.

- Construction.

- Plain large wooden blocks can support children in making an infinite number of imaginary worlds - large and small, in a variety of contexts, with or without props.

- Construction sets conjure up particular kinds of imaginative play. Mobilo, for example, often suggests fire engines or cranes. But imagination can be enriched by adding additional resources, such as fabric and stones.

- Large-scale construction involving materials for den-making - tyres, drainpipes, crates and large cardboard boxes - has the added bonus of requiring co-operation between children, helping them to learn from one another's ideas.

- Stories and books. Stories are the means by which people make sense of their world. The stories we tell feed children's imagination by touching on the themes and issues which engage them. Telling stories as well as reading them gives children material with which to imagine. Using different props including puppets, retelling in different ways, offering different endings and ensuring different styles of illustration all support the growth of imagination.

- Music workshop. Music and dance all too often are overlooked, yet they offer a wonderful stimulus to the imagination (see box).

- Natural and malleable materials. Sand, water, clay, soil and so on offer limitless possibilities for imaginative play with props - not just spades and containers but natural materials and small-world figures.

- Outside area. Just being outdoors feeds children's imagination. Water, trees, bushes, grasses, plants and seeds, together with wind, rain, sun and snow, promote ideas. Add to this materials for den-making and for large-scale construction.

ADULT ROLE

The key role for adults is, as always, in observing children; gauging what they are trying to achieve; and enriching provision by offering interaction and additional resources to help them develop their ideas further. Educators have not acknowledged sufficiently the importance of imagination. Here are some simple rules:

- Allow plenty of time and space for children to explore and pretend.

- Make storytelling, story reading and dramatic play an essential part of everyday practice.

- Encourage children to make unusual connections. This will involve making good links with family and community, as well as making it possible for children to move resources from place to place in the setting.

- Avoid templates, worksheets and other meaningless, time-filling and low-level activities.

- Make sure that sustained shared conversation and thinking between adults and children permeate the setting. Take time to develop relationships with children and families.

- Reflect on your observations, trying to understand what children are trying to understand.

- Show children that you are imaginative too - join in their play; make up songs. Be excited, maintaining both your own sense of wonder and that of the children.

CASE STUDY

The little play house in a children's centre had become dirty and underused. Staff decided to take out the home corner equipment and replace it with soft play. After an initial period of rather boisterous exploration, a group of children settled into an imaginative game in which they were dolphins and mermaids, swimming underwater. Over a period of many days, which included adult involvement - not merely to ensure safety but to promote sustained thinking and conversation - their enthusiasm became infectious. Relevant themes, identified in children's play, were taken up by staff. These included:

- treasure (jewellery from indoor home corners);

- fishing (sticks and autumn leaves);

- boats (constructed from crates and chairs, with a drain-pipe flagpole);

- and pirates (fuelled by children's knowledge of Peter Pan and relevant books displayed by staff).

RESOURCES

- Be open about what materials children might use and how.

- Find a local scrap project or contact local businesses.

- Encourage parents to contribute unusual recycled materials - slats from Venetian blinds make wonderful Robin Hood-style bows!

- Invest in lengths of fabric that might trigger imaginative play - shimmery fabric might suggest water, for example.

- Artists working alongside practitioners can be an invaluable resource. To find out more, visit: www.creative-partnerships.com.

MEETING THE EYFS

Imagination contributes to development in all areas of learning within the EYFS:

Imagination helps children to learn to empathise with, and care for, others. Children use imagination to explore and come to terms with their powerlessness (see We Don't Play With Guns Here). Vivian Gussin Paley describes children using their imagination in storytelling/story-acting to explore vital aspects of their lives - fairness, friendship, fantasy and fear of losing one's special place.

- When children explore ideas through spoken language; when they play with sounds, listen to a story or create a story with puppets, props or other children, imagination is involved.

The high levels of abstract thinking necessary develop from imagination; as do the flexibility and original thinking required for problem-solving and reasoning.

Physical development depends on imagination, both for exploring a wide range of movement and for ensuring the child's safety.

Imaginative play and the creative arts draw on imagination and experience. Children benefit from seeing artists, actors and musicians - but they also need to be supported in trying out their own imaginative ideas.

Piaget reminds us that knowledge feeds imagination. But imagination also promotes understanding by enabling children to gain a sense of time and place, and to look for possible causes and effects.

SOUND IT OUT

In our society there is a strong emphasis on visual stimuli, but you can also promote imagination through aural stimuli:

- Encourage physical action when children are listening to music. This helps them to internalise what they are hearing - enabling them to think about their ideas and feelings. Provide a mirror so that children can observe their movements.

- Foster children's natural habit of making up songs - all children do it yet we tend to ignore them in a way we wouldn't dream of doing with imaginative stories, pictures and models. Meanwhile, don't forget to include exploring vocal sounds.

- Provide plenty of sound-making materials and encourage children to find lots of different ways of making sounds by banging, scraping, shaking or plucking. Sound-makers have the advantage of not having a right or wrong way to play them. Who is to say how you should play a cardboard tube or piece of drainpipe?

- Give children opportunities to hear and engage in many different kinds of music - played by experienced as well as inexperienced musicians. They may be better able to imagine themselves playing an instrument if they don't only hear it played perfectly!

MORE INFORMATION

- Sally Jenkinson, The Genius of Play (Hawthorn Press)

- Vivian Gussin Paley, Bad Guys Don't Have Birthdays (Harvard University Press)

- Penny Holland, We Don't Play with Guns Here (Open University Press)

- Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods (Algonquin Books)