How Our Art Studio Turned Into a Bird Hospital: The Importance of Imaginative Play

A small group of 7-10 year old artists were working on mixed-media bird sculptures. The project was inspired by “Chita”, a precious little bird my husband and I purchased from artist Andrea Kay. There was an especially playful atmosphere and attitude towards this project as students chatted and came up with hilarious and dramatic histories, personalities, and names for their birds. After sculpting the birds out of clay we started wrapping the tiny bodies in plaster gauze strips. There were some comparisons made between our plaster process and plaster casts for broken bones. Before I knew it all of the students were talking to their birds…”It’s going to be ok, you’re going to be ok.”…“Oh, hun, I’ll fix you up."…”We’re like bird surgeons!” And just like that, somebody found the sidewalk chalk (that’s purposefully left out just in case), and the next thing I knew it there was a ‘Bird Recovery Area’ with a private recovery room for each bird. For the rest of class students took turns ‘doing rounds’ and checking in on the ‘patients’. You can’t make this stuff up.

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This is Imaginative Play. Why is Imaginative play important? Imaginative Play promotes positive associations with learning, encourages connections to real life situations, teaches problem solving, and gives kids a chance to practice their social and communication skills. A bit more about the benefits of imaginative play and tips to encourage imaginative play can be found on a very short and to-the-point article on Therapy Focus by Occupational Therapist, Tracey Ellis.

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This stuff is real. These kids organized themselves, created a schedule, had effective discussions, and came to decisions together. One little boy wrote the wrong number on the recovery room for his bird (these rooms were numbered). He got very upset and started crying. Before I could swoop in a sweet little 7 year old girl put her hand on his shoulder and told him, “It’s ok. It’s not that big of a deal, look we can fix it.” She asked me if they could use the hose to wash the number off and rewrite it in chalk. And that’s exactly why I leave the sidewalk chalk out, just in case.

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Sooooo….Engage in your children’s play and make-believe. You’ll also probably feel al little lighter yourself. :)