With The Time Machine Simulator Stimulator Mindflexor, you simulate time machine travel in order to stimulate your child’s creativity. In this Mindflexor, you send your child either back or forward to a specific time and you give them an activity to perform there. This activity would be one that, because of the time travel, would require the child to use their imagination in order to come up with a new way of performing the task. Depending on the child’s age, you may have to give them additional information regarding what differences they may encounter traveling to certain time periods. For instance, tell your child you are sending him/her back in time before electricity was invented and ask them how they would cook a meal, or wake up without an alarm clock. Or send them forward in time and say, in this time period, bicycles are a thing of the past, and have them describe what they see themselves riding on at the park.
There are many ways this Mindflexor can be performed. You can have your child describe to you their answer, draw a picture of it, write a story, or even act it out. It is simple enough that you can play this at the dinner table in order to flex their creative minds. Have each person come up with a time period and activity for the family member next to them – working your way around the table as each person describes their answer and then comes up with a different Time Machine Simulator Stimulator for the person to their right.
You should encourage your child to be as innovative and detailed as they can be. And remember, there are no wrong answers. It is a great way to encourage and help develop your child’s imagination, innovation and problem-solving abilities. If they are acting out their answers, you can help them get even more creative by supplying props for them to use: boxes, straws, hats, plastic cups, virtually anything you find lying around the house. It’s especially fun for the kids if you let them actually create the time machine. It can be as simple as making it out of pillows and blankets draped over chairs, or if you have a big box lying around, let them draw on it with crayons or markers to make levers and lights.
When coming up with ideas for your “stimulators”, think of the 1985 movie “Back to the Future” – a movie I recently had my children watch, which they loved. Send your kids back to the 1850’s in the Wild West and tell them to turn their favorite video game into an actual physical activity that could have been played back then . Or send them to the 1950’s, and ask them how they would communicate with their friends without iPhones or texting. Or send them to the Future and have them describe what their transportation to school would look like – maybe a Hoverboard? Ever since watching the movie, my youngest son keeps asking me when Marty McFly’s Hoverboard (a skateboard without wheels that flies low to the ground) is going to be invented. Who knows, maybe some child is sitting around today, imagining up the idea as we speak, only to grow up one day and build it.
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