The contest is now closed. Please stay tuned for the announcement of the winners!
Have you and your kids ever built a “pirate ship” out of couch cushions? Explored the backyard in search of “fairies”? Hunted under the bed for “buried treasure”
? We want to hear about how your family uses imagination to escape the everyday and turn life into an adventure! Tell us your story for a chance to win.
The Prizes:
50 winners will be randomly chosen to receive a copy of JumpStart Escape from Adventure Island, a brand new Wii™
learning adventure for ages 5-9. Plus, 3 lucky winners will be chosen to receive the Ultimate Escape Prize Pack including:
- 1 copy of JumpStart Escape from Adventure Island (rated E by the ESRB)
- 1 Nintendo Wii console –to escape boredom
- $250 in SpaFinder® gift certificates –to escape stress
- 1 Flip™ Mino HD video camera –to record your adventures
- 3 lifetime JumpStart memberships –1 for you, 2 to share with friends
- 500 JumpStart.com virtual coins –to keep your kids’ online adventure exciting
- JumpStart gear – to dress for adventure
How to Enter:
Leave a comment here with a story of your family’
s favorite imagination adventure before November 16, 2009 (limit one story entry per person). For a bonus entry, send a tweet including ”I just entered to win the Ultimate Escape Prize Pack at http://blog.jumpstart.com/win/escape! #jumpstart.com” before November 16, 2009 (limit one Twitter entry per person). We’ll be tracking the Twitter entries, but if your tweets are private, make sure to report back here with a link to your tweet. Good luck!
We actually had a 3 month subscription to JumpStart that I won once and that was so fun, but we just didn’t have the money to keep it going. I know my son really enjoyed it, although he wasn’t quite the “right” age to understand it all. It was a blast.
Since we live in a remote area where there are no kids to play with, my daughter has created a special (imaginary) best friend. Along with a whole crew of *girlscouts*(also imaginary) We have parties with food toys crafts and Jumpstart scholastic books.
We do this often and have many memorable adventures and learning experiences together.
I recomend jumpstart to everyone and have never gotten any feedback from anyone except thanks and awesome.
We have a corn field behind back yard. This corn field has been the site of a jungle hunt, treasure hunt, exploration trips. looking for bones, dinosaurs, etc. She loves adventuring. She packs her backpack with food, water and a walkie talkie so she can “report” to headquarters (mom).
A way to keep the imaginaton going… hmmm. My girls would moan and groan about going grocery shopping. The store is about 40 min away and would take the normal 1 1/2 time in the store. they hated it.
So we started getting ready. We would get our space suits on (jackets) and all our needed space gear (toys,books for car) and climb into our rocket (car). Once there we would decide what “planet” we were headed too (lots of interesting names would be created). Then i would back out. And face the street… and we would count off from 5, 4, 3, 2 1…. blast off… We would meet stars, aliens etc all the way to the planet. While on the planet we discovered native life forms, plants, all kinds of things…. and eventually got back into our rocket to get home. My girls would come up with almost 85% of all the imaginations, all it took was me playing along to spur their confidence!
Our favorite imagination adventure is how our 6 yr old son translates his play on Jump Start on the computer into real life activities and projects. He will color and color and dream up his own versions of the game and will want us to play and engage in his imaginative ideas outside of computer time.
My daughter and I always pick a theme for our park trips to keep everything interesting and fun!
We love JumpStart products and the JumpStart website! Pick us! Pick us!
As a home-schooling mother, sometimes it’s difficult to find things that both enrich my sons’ learning but are also fun. My oldest son started his Jump Start learning when he was 4 years old, before there were interactive online games. He would spend all day singing “Come on its RACE DAY…” As he got older, he began to really enjoy the Jumpstart Worlds interactive games and even though he is in the 4th grade, he still loves to get onto his Jumpstart 2nd grade game, just to do the adventures and open up new areas of the map. My youngest son, was also 4 when he got hooked on Jumpstart. He loved the practice books, the Worlds adventure games, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you his real name is “Casey”! He just started Kindergarten and is already reading at a 2nd grade level and loves learning because of his Jumpstart games.
Just a few weeks ago, my son had his 5th birthday, and imagine his absolute joy when his Jumpstart World game was decorated with balloons and birthday cakes! It was the best part of his day and after his party was over, he couldn’t wait to get home to play Jumpstart again because they were celebrating his birthday!
I owe so much gratitude to Jumpstart for years of joy and fun, and a love of learning that these games have helped nurture in both of my sons.
I have two boys that are 6 and 7.. …One of my favorite past time adventure that we share would have to be…making magic boxes for there teeth that they loose. We have told them that the tooth fairy comes to get your teeth and goes to sell them to the sandman so he can grind them up into dust to put in your eyes to make you sleepy at night…According to us if you don’t make a cool magic box for the tooth the sandman doesnt pay you as much..They find it really neat!
We have a patch of woods behind our house where my girls have set up a secret play house. They mostly get sticks, rocks, and dirt and “cook” food for each other. They spend hours out there!
my daughters and I often like to dress up as ballerinas and float around the house dancing and flying through the air, while we listen to music on disney.com we all have our own tutus and our own wands, we make up dances and perform them for mom mom and pop pop when they visit. It is our favorite fun thing to do together….
It starts with a cardboard box, blank paper, a marker and tape. My Daughter can let her imagination SOAR. This past weekend was Dragon Land. We created Dragons out of lego blox. Everyone had their own home built for them using paper and tape with marker details. Endless possibilities.
Both my boys really love playing Jumpstart World. My youngest one is playing the Kindergarten one and my oldest is playing the Grade 1 level. They also really enjoy playing the games that are online and really like to see how the seasons in the game change with the seasons in life. I’m really happy that I have stumbled across this game because they both love and I love the educational aspects of it also.
My son, Jeran, enjoys playing Jumpstart at the end of his homeschooling day. His favorite part of Jumpstart is playing with his buddies on Jumpstart.
Jeran’s favorite imagination adventures are when we are superheros, or secret spies.
Our children absolutely love using Jump Start. They are 4 and 6 years old and would rather play this than watch any TV, which I really appreciate. We bought the year subscription and have used it quite a bit. Right now my son’s favorite is the Petz story area.
On long car trips, we use our imagination to pass the time. We take turns coming up with names for our very own world — like cookie planet, dog planet, etc. Then we use our imaginations to describe what life would be like on that planet. Once we come up with our new world (or worlds if we can’t choose just one) — we look out the window and tell each other what we see going on in the new world as we drive our “spaceship” through it. Real world items like cars, signs, cows get incorporated into the story line of the new world we have created. The kids really like that mom and dad can be silly and use their imaginations, too.
My mother has 2 acres of land, so when we go over there, they play in the piles of leaves. They make a city, businesses and homes. They pretend the leaves are pets, money, furniture, they imagine all sorts of things! Boy does that city get BIG!! They have so much fun in the leaves!!
My kids LOVE to crawl around the house pretending to be dogs. Puppies is the current craze, they make houses for themselves under the livingroom tables and play fetch with each other in the hallway.
They enjoy playing dogs so much that two of them dressed up as dogs for Trunk or Treat at church.
The girls love to build a “fort” out of blankets, chairs, and pillow, boxes if they are around. Then they play animals. they make families and friends with different animals, dogs, cats, deer, horses. They visit each others houses (forts), go shopping collecting things around the house, and pay with play money. have parties, and so much more!
My boys and I love to explore along the canal not far from our house. We send dried out milkweed pods on voyages down the river. We pretend that the milkweed pods are fairy boats going to explore new regions. We also love to play in the garden making streams with the water hose, the squash are little houses. We sit out there in the garden and read or make up stories.
Our very best imagination advetures usually involve a large cardboard box. It transforms from one mode of transportation to another as the kids imagine all of the places we are traveling to and the adventures we have along the way!
Here is the link to my tweet! I am really looking forward to posting my review of the game for you on A List Maker’s Life, and to share this great giveaway with my readers! Best of luck to you and fingers crossed for me;)
http://twitter.com/listladykatie/status/5371165374
In our family we never worry about buying a Halloween costume for a single night – we have Halloween just about all year long.
As a homeschooler we’ve got to keep things fun & motivated and if the kids have the blaghs or it’s been raining too many days in a row or things are just “bor-ring” we break out the costumes! I’ve gone grocery shopping with Indiana Jones, a princess and a witch. I’ve gone to drop off library books with Darth Vader, a flower & Belle. I’ve mailed things at the post office with Jango Fett, Hanna Montana, & a ballerina.
Why can’t you have Halloween once a month? There’s no trick-or-treating needed. Kids simply love to dress up! The errands go smoother since they’re happy to go to more stores or make more stops so that they can show off their costumes to more people. And the surprised smiles from other errand runners & workers makes us all the happier!
Before I had kids it always made me smile to see the kid in the grocery store stomping through as a superhero or zoo animal. You just knew that that child was having a good day & what a cool parent to let them enjoy it that way! So today I’m glad to be the nut with the circus following her from store to store. What’s a childhood worth if you can’t be silly & have fun for no other reason than to be silly and have fun?
We actually just bought the Jumpstart pet rescue for the wii, and the kids have just been going nutz with it! We have gone on so many adventures with it…
We also just moved to the country, and go on adventure walks all the time! Go explore the canal, the cows and horses… sooo much fun!!!
Tweet tweeted!!!
http://twitter.com/wedwithbabies/status/5372258718
tweeted
http://twitter.com/Fullnest/status/5370243941
I have an almost three year old grandson that I currently have custody of. His room is filled with all kind of toys but he prefers to take the cushions off the sofa, loveseat, and chair in the living room and we will build a “house” out of them. It usually ends up looking like a fort that we cover with a sheet and that is where he hides until T-Rex comes and he can jump out to scare T-Rex away.
Tweeted – http://twitter.com/NCBelle36/status/5372992960
http://twitter.com/Yukieokami
My very first tweet!
My 4 year old daughter and I like to have a picnic breakfast in the closet sometimes. She goes through and picks out foods for us and then she will lay out a blanket in the closet. We gather up a bunch of animal toys and our cat joins us in our our animal picnic. We also like to dress up as different animals and pretend we are running around out in the wild.
Using your imagination in new and creative ways is an important part of our days. All of our kids use their imagination in different ways. Our ten year old loves to read and reenact scenes. Our eight year old loves to paint and draw. Our four year old loves to wear costumes and pretend he is an Alien, a Ghostbuster, a wild animal or many other things. What an amazing prize! A lifetime family membership! Is that something you are also selling? I need to check.
My tweet; http://twitter.com/HSlater351/status/5374114618
Tweeted!
http://twitter.com/butterfly88kiss/statuses/5373867395
We listen to podcasts of the radio version of Lone Ranger and pretend we are riding horses and shooting at the sky. My 3 year old loves it!
our favorite imagination adventure is setting up sheets from furniture to furniture and pretending we are in caves.
http://twitter.com/vickers2622/statuses/5378194836
We go out in our boat and have pirate adventures. Thanks for the contest.
tweet: http://twitter.com/slehan/status/5378373036
Our favorite family adventure is pretending our six year old is a knight. She has made swords and shields out of paper and other items around the house. We are the king and queen and we set her out on missions to save our kingdom.
I like to build forts in the house out of quilts with my 5 kiddos… we imagine that we are in deep caves and spaceship… all sorts of things!!! We have so much fun!
I have 4 children, 3 of whom are ages 3 and under. Keeping the little one entertained is hard. I really hate letting them watch t.v for any length of time because usually they just end up getting into something they shouldn’t.
So, what I have been doing, is especially with the weather turning colder is finding things for them to do around here. A favorite is taking all the blankets and making a fort out of all the furniture in the living room and using cushions as beds. We will pop popcorn and watch a DvD usually Dora or Backyardigans
Turn the music up and just dance. I let my 2 yr old daughter dress up in dresses.
I buy an inexpensive can of shaving cream and spray it on the table and let them play in it
We will go on “Dinosaur hunts” or play “im gonna get you” (my 3 yr olds favorite game…tag)
Twitter http://twitter.com/melissa_austin
My three year old and I like to cover ourselves in a big sheet to “sshhhh” and hide from everyone. When we’re convinced they don’t know we’re the big covered up lump in the floor, we jump out and scare them. My three year old just cackles and laughs!
tweeted at http://twitter.com/JennatFFP/status/5380258773
So funny! When my son was young, it was all about wrestling. I had to get down in the floor with him and all his wrestling figures and accessories and pretend we were the wrestlers. We had a blast but I am not a wrestling fan. LOL I had to learn the name of all the “moves” and “tricks”, not to mention the names of every wrestler because he had every single one of them.
I wouldn’t trade those times for anything but, Lord knows, I had to have looked pretty darn silly.
I am always encouraging my daughters to use their imagination. My children have a swing set that was given to us by friends. The swing set has been the set of many stories. Everything from reenacting movies such as Peter Pan, or staging their own rescue the princess story. They love to play cook for the family in their kitchen and will play restaurant for hours.
Thank you for a chance to win!
My two boys, Jackson and Preston, love to pretend play. One of our favorite things to do is build a tent with them. In the tent we can go anywhere and be any person we want to be. Of course, swords and guns are involved in one way or another. “Bad cops” is a popular game. The tent is the office, and the boys will go out to fight most of the time they are fighting our dog Lucy. They run around pretending to shoot us, and hide under anything and everything. There is always a lot of laughing involved with pretend play. I can honestly say that pretend play is one of my favorite things to do with my two boys.
(first, i dont have kids, but i have lots of nieces and nephews…so if i win, the kiddo stuff goes to them!)
my imagination went ‘across the road’ when i was little. to an old cement square base for an old windmill. it was turned on it’s side so the inside was sitable, standable, liveable…by any tweens standards. and my friend ann and i wanted to do just that. live there. forever. too bad about that nebraska winter weather….
not sure how to select just my most recent tweet…but i did just tweet it….
http://twitter.com/moxiephoto
I just entered to win the Ultimate Escape Prize Pack at http://blog.jumpstart.com/w…! #jumpstart.com
less than 10 seconds ago from web
My girls and I build a tent out of sheets and act like we are in a safari. She places her stuffed animals and pretends we are on the look out for wild beasts. We use the binoculars and pretend to look across the plains in search of water and food. We run and scream if we think a wild beast is after us. Good times.
We play alot of make believe!
I tweeted
@boriqua3720
http://twitter.com/boriqua3720/status/5381644027
When my son was little (around 3) We would always make up bedtime stories. One of us would start the story and then the other would continue it, and we would go back and forth until he finally fell asleep. In most of the stories he was a prince who was always rescuing some kind of animal. He loves animals. He still loves to use his imagination (and is still rescuing animals) but does so in the creative stories he writes
for school.
Thanks for sponsoring a great and useful giveaway!
I tweeted
http://twitter.com/zebastyandylan/statuses/5382036979
My twin boys are still infants but they love to play a kind of hide and seek, where we cover them with a blanket & pretend we don’t know where they are. They laugh so hard. They also like imaginative play with hand puppets. I make up new stories and situations just to make them laugh. I hope they are learning language & imagination as they are entertained.
My son loves it when I join him under the covers on his bed to enter into his most famous Rocket Ship. And inside his rocket ship there are so many controls and levers. Which one will you choose to press to blast off into outer space. I always choose the big red button. Counting down. . . 10. . 9. .8. .7. .6. .5. .4. .3. .2. .1. BLAST OFF! As we tunnel through space, we look out the huge front window of the ship to see the most spectacular view of a very black sky full of huge white stars and colorful planets that haven’t been touched by the foot of man. We are having so much fun in outer space that we don’t want to come back.
http://twitter.com/Mel4Him/status/5382262426
we love to build forts all over the house and go on adventures… My DD that is now 11 yrs old loved to play your jumpstart games on the computer when she was younger and now her 2 yr old brother loves them too!
My son has come up with his own imaginative game at 2.5 years old. He tells us “You be car, I be stop sign”. We have to put our hands on an imaginary steering wheel and make car noises until he holds up his hand and shouts “Stop”! He loves this game!
I tweeted: http://twitter.com/annazxcv/status/5382807452
My son has such an imagination! He will use blocks, lego, or any other type of “building” material to create things to go with other toys or just for fun. BOth my son and daughter use the swingset in our backyard to put on shows. Their shows always involve going across the swingset using each piece of the set in some way. It is so fun to watch!
I find the best escape is to throw a cover over a table. It can function as a fort, a tent, a house, a tee-pee, the possibilities are endless. You can decorate the space with pillows and lights, even tape up pictures. It’s a nice quiet place for story time as well.
I tweeted about your contest! un: codisweepstakes
codisweepstakes2 (@) gmail.com http://twitter.com/codisweepstakes/status/5382916274
About a yr ago we took our 1 yr old and my 3 yr old nephew on a car adventure. (we knew where we were headed but they didn’t) We told the 3 yr. old we were lost and missed our turn…but luckily after a long car ride we at least ended up at Chucky Cheeses. He has mentioned our getting lost at several subsequent visits, and always asks if we can get lost again.
My children are pretty young, and my son is just beginning to exercise his imagination, so we try to encourage it in everyday activities. We fill our days pretending to be race cars racing off to get a diaper change, a monkey to eat those last bites of banana, or even pirates or “scurvey sea dogs!” splashing away to an adventure in the bath.
My 17 month old daughter and I play dress up with my husband’s clothes and dance to music and read books under the kitchen table.
Tweeted.
http://twitter.com/notimeMom/status/5383423474
My 10 year old son has Autism and has a difficult time reading. He has every Jump Start game and he loves them all. For the past week he has been telling me that I need to sign him up for a Jump Start membership. I have not done it yet, but when I think about it, what is my hold up!!! I spend $80 for 45minutes of speech each week. What is $10 a month for a learning game that will help him learn. I also thought I saw a Jump Start Wii game at Sam’s Club last week. I was right and you now have another one that is age appropriate. Thank you Jump Start!!!!
My daughter had the chance to play Jumpstart for a few weeks. Although we had computer troubles she loved what she could play all sorts of games to help her with school and have fun too. Her adventures in the room that helps her strengthen her math skills was the best floating from level to level. She loved it. She was keeping her skills fresh during the summer and was ready for back to school when she returned
We have two boys, age 5 and 6, whom have been playing JumpStart games since they were 3 and 4. We recently became members and they are thrilled to have all the extra bonuses that come with a membership.
Imagination is an important part of our household. Our two boys reenact everything from their favorite shows to everyday errands. They love to pretend cook, play house, run a store, put on a concert for their adoring fans (stuffed animals), and have even been seen rescuing each other from the evil clutches of doom. Bad guys never stand a chance against our two superheros. Sometimes they even have the aide of their 4 year old cousin.
I tweeted, too.
http://twitter.com/amboutwe/status/5385707068
I love it when my kids tell me all about their adventures on Jumpstart and how my children ask me over and over if they can get on jumpstart! I know its place that is safe for my kids to go and play and its very educational and they don’t even think about that! LOL!
Our favorite imagination adventures is one day we built a castle in our living room. The boys were both on different sides and they each had their own little castle. One was the bad guy and one was the good guy. My daughter was the princess that needed to be saved by the good guy. She said I am the princess cuz I am locked in the tower. She is 3. She then went on to talk about the dragon that was garding her and that the knight. My 4 year old son had to come and save her. The boys were pretending to have cannons and shoot back and forth at each other. They had little windows they made in their castles and were shooting out of those. Eventually my 4 year old got past my evil (lol!) 7 year old and slayed the dragon and got to my daughter! It was a great fun time my husband and I just sat and watched.
My son and step daughter love to act scenes out from their favorite movies and play the roles of their favorite characters and since there are only two of them they sometimes have to play more than one character. The do the voices and the movements and my son even loves to do the parts where he has to fall or get knocked down. They are actually quite good and remember their “lines” well.
We often take the family Geo cacheing on the road where we tell the kids we have to find the pirate treasure by using GPS and of course when we find the treasure we have to leave a gift for the next person to find who comes to search for the treasure too. The whole family has such fun doing this and there are Geo caches around the globe. Each person gets to take a turn picking out what prize will be left behind for the next person to find. We also built a house for fairies in our yard for the little ones to watch. It was built using sticks and feathers and leaves and flowers that we knew fairies would love. An all natural habitat for them. The girls love it!
My kids like to build “forts” in the living room, and then pretend they’re the Swiss Family Robinson. I am always close by to provide snacks!
Tweeted http://twitter.com/cdziuba/status/5388281758
What is amazing is that my kids played Jump Start about 12 years ago! I remember how excited they were to be able to take virtual adventures. Now, I have nieces that play! It is good to know a company that is dedicated.
My children have always have a very vivid imagination. They would love to take adventures on rainy days. First they would cover tables with sheets and make their own house and both would dress up. My daughter would be the one to pick the costumes and “make” my son follow along. His favorite was being a cowboy (he rarely ever took his boots off) and my daughters was to be a socialite with her tea parties and fancy hats with giant feathers and lots of jewelry. They would then visit each others “house” bringing gifts to each other.
I just sent out a tweet, too! (@babybear777)
http://twitter.com/babybear777/status/5390354091
we were telling imaginative bedtime stories. my favorite was my 2-year-old’s story that went like this: “……bear!…..” that was it, but he used such excitement and inflection.
My son imagines there are hockey games going on all the time. Sometimes he is in them, sometimes they go on without him. He will play his heart out…for both teams, and the tell me every little detail about his imaginary game.
We have a game in my family called “guess where”. It started when they were really little and would always ask me where we were going when we were getting ready to go somewhere. Sometimes, plans fall through and they would be so disappointed, so I decided to stop telling them where we were going and instead have them guess the whole way there.
From the backseat there would be shout outs of “the zoo!” and I would ask “What is at the zoo?” and they would go on and on about the adventures they have in their imaginations. Each time it would be a different place and each time they would make up these incredible stories describing these places they thought we might be going. After hearing their guesses I would say “noooope, where else do you think we might be going?” and this would continue until we got to our destination.
This was a great way to kill time, expand their imaginations and also avoid little broken hearts in case things didn’t work out.
tweet! tweet!
http://www.twitter.com/gypsyjewels
My 4 year old daughter loves to pretend she is traveling and exploring all of the neat places in the world. We often go on adventures to Alaska, Australia, Hawaii and the North Pole. We pack our backs, sit on the couch jet and let our wings take us on great adventures. When we arrive in Alaska, we go fishing and search for bears. In Antarctica, we meet penguins who take us swimming in underground caves. At Hawaii, we put on our hula girl costumes and have a luau. Everyday she asks me…. Mommy, where should we go today???
They make and pretend to sell mud pies.
Tweet: http://twitter.com/samasam/status/5392322518
My son loves to imagine that we are in the ocean and there are sharks down there. We have to stay off the floor and run from couch to couch or to a chair, etc. and get our feet off the ground as quickly as possible.
http://twitter.com/Krabby_Beach
http://twitter.com/Krabby_Beach/status/5393358236
When my niece comes over, we play “restaurant”. She cooks the food and I get to eat it! I think she’ll be a great cook when she gets older!!
My kids are very imaginative so we don’t usually have to try very hard to let their imaginations soar! One way that we entertain each other on car rides is by making up stories about our family pets. We always start the stories the same way but from there the kids and I take turns weaving stories that can go pretty much anywhere we can come up with and they can get pretty wild and quite funny! All the pets have “personalities” that we work with and I really wish we could record the stories because they are so much fun and it makes even the most boring errands a blast!
marielay@gmail.com
Our favorite imagination game is when they “cook” me something in their play kitchen. I love to sit at their table and taste all their great creations. Clean up is quick and fun too.
Thank you
tatertot374@sbcglobal.net
Tweet
http://twitter.com/tatertot374/status/5393723549
Thank you
tatertot374@sbcglobal.net
Right now my sons favorite game is Picturika. We usually play on saturday nights and we have a blast. I follow on twitter. @lambchop1965
I tweeted http://twitter.com/lambchop1965/status/5393868340
Yes we would in winter time,I would go outside and shovel a path all over our backyard.then I would take and make small banks,and use food dye to spray each bank.then get our 3 children outside,and we’d be exploring the north pole.polar bear hill-penguin valley-whalrus bay-seal lion cove.oh the stories they each told as we walked the paths.then at the end of path we’d reach a place :snow cone shack,and enjoy snow cones of 4 flavors(berry-cherry-fruity-maple syrup).we used a old penguin ice shaver,put shaved ice in our styrofoam cups,pour toppings on,much away!
Wes create adventures all day – inside and outside. We often have a play kitchen or create train adventures inside and outside it is all about the dogs, birds, rabbits and big, old, wise trees.
tvollowitz at aol dot com
We sometimes mix work and imagination in our home. We will clean up an area and say we are going to “clean like locusts”! We start in one corner and pick up everything in our path, leaving nothing behind. This activity is three fold: 1. We get the room clean. 2. We have fun with our imaginations. 3. The kids learned something about locusts.
My grandson LOVES Jumpstart and couldn’t wait to see Futureland. In fact, he called me on his father’s cell phone last week, FROM DISNEY WORLD, to see if it was up yet, LOL!
I have ‘pioneer nights’ with my grandchildren. It’s interesting to see how the kids come up with things to do and use when they have to use their imagination instead of electricity, television, computers, batteries, etc. Instead of complaining, they always ask when we can do it again! It is a great way for the family to become closer and to watch the older kids help the younger ones is inspiring.
Tweet
http://twitter.com/taterbugtx/status/5399405892
My boys are both big fans of ghost hunting. They are 5 & 7. We often visit haunted places and take our Flip camera to try to capture voices and spirits. Of course we never really do but they have a blast using their imaginations and hoping to catch a spirit!
Tweet!
http://twitter.com/simplyandreah/status/5400942614
we have two very large appliance boxes in the family room that the kids play in. they have books, toys, pillows, Halloween costumes and flashlights in there. right now the girls call it their school
A few years ago, my son wanted nothing else but a “real-life kid-sized rocket ship” for Christmas. I tried to prep him for the dissapointment before the big day. I kept telling him that Santa would probably not be able to bring him a working rocket ship. But he continued to keep that at the top of his list. On Christmas morning, the house was not taken over by an enormous rocket, but there were plenty of great imaginative toys. It wasn’t long, however, before he confiscated the new TV box and cut doors and windows, filled it with necessities (like pillows and his favorite stuffed dog) and colored the cardboard. Who needs Santa when you’ve got cardboard boxes?? He had hours of fun in his homemade rocket ship. Granted, he DID know the difference. When asked about his rocket ship, he reminded me that it was not QUITE the same as a real one, and that he would still prefer a working rocket ship…..but that did not stop him from having the time of his life. Just him, his stuffed dog, and his imagination.
Here’s my tweet: http://twitter.com/1momof5/status/5401362084
I really want this!!
Our family likes to talk about other places that we may someday like to travel. For example we’ll take turns, describing what our thoughts of how Africa or Hawaii would look like.
We also like to play pretend and make out that we’re visiting those places. One snowy day last winter, we (along with my young niece), set out a beach blanket in our family room. We had ice cream and we pretended we were at the beach. We talked about seeing the ocean and the birds in the sky. It was really quite fun.
Thanks so much for this wonderful giveaway.
The kids Halloween costumes arrived, 1 pirate & 2 army outfits. The boys armed themselves and then ran all over the 2.5 acres of yard clearing out all the “zombies” for an hour and a half. You wouldn’t believe the zombie infestation we were suffering from.
Pretend warfare on imaginary creatures is de rigeur in our house.
When my 7 year old was 5, he dreaded going to the grocery store (still does actually). To make it fun, we would pretend he was a spy. I would leave him a clue hidden somewhere in the house. It would contain a hint of something to look for in the store. Once he found that item (always something on our grocery list), he would get a new clue. It would continue until we were finished grocery shopping and had found everything on our list.
We always used to make forts and imagine we were in this tree house on an island.
tweeted
http://twitter.com/blissunknown/status/5405270817
I actually am not very firmiliar with these…so I would love to get them and have my kids watch them…they sound great!!!
During long car trips, we play the ABC game where you name an object starting with the letter and the next person says an object that begins with the next letter and so on. Makes the trip just fly by and we usually get silly with our answers.
We put up a tent in our living room on a rainy night and pretended to camp.We made smores and ate hotdogs.When we got in the tent we made shadow animals. It was thundering and it felt like we were really outside.
tweeted~http://twitter.com/CJSMOMMY2005/status/5405928831
tweet
http://twitter.com/ohstac/statuses/5405927320
My grandson is Josh, he stays with me alot and we have alot of fun building buildings out of those great big alphabet blocks, all kinds of buildings! lol Last year he was in kindergarten and having alot of problems. They couldnt get him to sit still and absorb the lessons. I got him jumpstart trouble in town for Christmas. I went by the age recommendation, not knowing it was really first grade. When I realized it was grade 1 I thought I had made a mistake. He is very ADHD. and I was afraid he would get frustrated, but I downloaded it anyway and he started playing . He was hooked within minutes! I helped him with the stuff he hadnt started in school to prevent frustration, and he has soared. He doesnt get to come over as much now as then, and his dad cant get it to download on his computer so I signed up for the online version because he loves it so much. Now he playes the online version on every computer he can get his hands on, and Trouble in Town here. Even his teacher thinks it may be helping with his reading, math, and especially his concentration. Thanks so much for this wonderful product.
We escape together when we read together. There is no other journey like there is to escape into a world of characters and stories beyond the imagination! When I read to my children, they go far away into lands they never dreamed of. And I tend to go with them!
http://twitter.com/teachmom3
We love to have “theme days” where we imagine we are going somewhere/ doing something but we always dress the part and plan meals and activities around our themes – so fun!
We often sit on our stairs and pretend that it’s a plane, boat, train, bus, etc.
We are all about the creative in this house!
We have a lot of family adventures. Are daughter loves going on hikes and when we go we play games and try to find different things in the woods. We will also pretend we see different exotic wld life. Not only does this help with her learning it opens her mind to imagination
http://twitter.com/Jammie79/status/5408938738 tweeted
Our daughter is only 18 months old, so our imagination games are not too adventurous just yet. She loves when we play tea party, in the backyard, and pretend to drive to various restaurants on her Radio Flyer turtle.
Hi,
My son CJ just started Jumpstart one week ago and he is already advanced to the 2nd grade level. What is so amazing is he is only four years old. He loves the downloads and the The Legend of Grizzly MucGuffin. His favorites are the car race, the movies, the slides, and the marine area. It is kinda of funny my husband was actually worried about this. I am in my late thirties and I love the game I have made and on-line character and play, sometimes I play with him on-line. The hard part is I can’t even drag him away from the game. I can offer all the parent bribes even going to DQ and he says no thanks mom you just go and bring me back something. My son has been bless by his overindulgenent grandmother (my mom he is her only grandchild) he has ever child video interactive game possible. WII, smart bike, vtech childs computer, and many other distractive games so he won’t want to go outside (she has bought all his favorite cartoon characters software.) He won’t touch them anymore he wants Jumpstart. He can get on-line all on his own no help from us, feeling useless parents.
Can change the game options to be in full screen any thing to do with the game. The only he gets stuck on is when he pushes way to many buttons and crashes his computer then we feel like we are usefull and come to his rescue.
Thanks for the ears while I tooted my own horn. I am just a very very proud parent and love Jumpstart.
Thank you Jumpstart we love you.
Becah
Adventures are such a big part of growing up! My almost 5 year old has a huge imagination and and loves anything that has to do with dinosaurs! So recently, instead of buying the expensive dinosaur costumes we make them ourselves! A couple paper bags, faux leather snake skin from the fabric store, molding clay and some markers, we are all set! So far he has made a T-Rex and Stegosaurus costumes. Then we head to the woods across the street and pretend to be dinosaurs during prehistoric times. Even my 2 year old daughter gets involved…she usually ends up being the “juicy meat” prey
I love how our adventures expand the mind and make memories at the same time.
Thank you so much for this awesome giveaway! My son really enjoys playing Jump Start and embarking on all the ADVENTURES you have to offer
I follow Jump Start on twitter and tweeted about this giveaway!!! Thanks
http://twitter.com/Shopaholic_Mama/status/5411479110
My kids love to play “restaurant”. It sounds weird, but they love it! They each take turns being the waitress and writing down what the other ones want to eat. Then the waitress serves them. It’s also fun to add funny stuff to the menu, like frog’s eyes or something. Then when the “frog’s legs” are served it’s something real like celery. Then it is a little bit of a surprise!
At bedtime each night I tell my boys an adventure story. They love the crazy stories that I come up with each night. It’s fun when they start to add their own ideas to the story as well, it really sparks their imagination!
Our favorite imagination adventure is to let the kids build a fort in the back yard (or living room, depending on the weather) then we take turns starting a story that takes us on adventures in our fort. Each family member takes turns adding to the story. The fort becomes a boat, an airplane, a space ship, a tee pee..it’s lots of fun and great family time
Thanks for the chance to win! We love JumpStart!
Here’s my tweet
http://twitter.com/ptownmoofus/status/5412032431
My boys are very creative so all I have to do is get them started.Sometimes we come up with stories about nonsense.I gave them drawing stuff one day to cure boredom and my son started his own comic book.Although he is only 8 he has a very active imagination and draws daily,so this is something he has kept up over time.He has added characters,made more issues etc with the help of the family members ideas and input.This love for creating is something he is passing on to his brother and sister and I hope they all continue to do so.
My family’s favorite imagination adventure is the planning of our trip to Australia in two years. The children get excited trying to decide what we will do when we arrive.
We had a screened tent set up in our backyard over the summer. When we took it down there was a large brown circle of dirt left in the yard because it had killed the grass underneath. Taylee and I pretended that aliens had landed and left that circle. We imagined that the neighborhood cats and dogs were really aliens trying to rebuild their spaceship so that they could return home. Taylee found a footprint left in the dirt by some animal and said that was an alien footprint.
Our imagination adventure is to pretend our big king bed is a boat floating in the ocean. The whole family has to stay on the boat because you don’t want to fall into the ocean. We play different games all in attempts that someone will slip off the bed. Usually someone eventually has to go to the bathroom so and the game ends. But for about an hour the family is together with no distractions. Just being a family and having fun.
Every time we get on the freeway, my 4 year old daughter counts down as we accelerate up the on-ramp. 3-2-1 blast off! She wants to be an astronaut when she grows up and always brings her “space suit” and “astronaut tools” wherever we go so she can practice going to space.
One of our favorite imaginary encouraging games to play as a family is with a balloon. We blow up a balloon, we each get on top of a different piece of furniture or pillows laid out randomly around the room, and toss the balloon at each other. We jump around the room to make sure the balloon doesn’t fall into the lava (which happens to be the floor). If the balloon or a member of our family falls into the lava, we start again. It is team building and fun!
My son likes to pretend his bed is a fire engine and he is fire fighter Sam. I would call him on his toy phone for help and he would rush to my rescue. During the times when he’s not putting out fire, he pretends that his bed is a kitchen and I’m a hungry customer whom he prepares sandwiches for.
Tweet: http://twitter.com/JustForMeAndYou/status/5422564151
Our favorite imagination adventure would be to go to a place like in Peter Pan , Never Never Land, where we could all “never” grow up! My daughter would be a fairy and my son says he’d like to be a pirate!
I also tweeted
http://twitter.com/kristinialeanna/status/5422977409
First i’d like to say thank you Jumpstart.You are a big part in a lot of families lives….
We are now helping raise our grandson’s and try and get them to use and explore their imaginations as much as possible.We live in a rural area sothere are lots of trees around us.In the midst of the pines a swing set is placed along with a bench and a few small tables.This is their ”park”.They named it.This is not your normal park,it is adventure park.They imagine they are lot’s of different characters as well as places that we read about and that they see on tv.Interaction between them there always inspires me.And yes,Jumpstart has inspired some fun in the ”park”.
Very close by is a couple dirt piles that have been brought in.These as well serve as magical places for them.The piles i only recently found out how much fun they were to billy,age 7(and extremely smart).Grandparents day at school the kids were suppose to draw a picture representing a special time they spent with grandparents.Billy drew the big dirt piles with him on top with a sword and me at the base smiling upat him with a camera! I love taking pics of them.. lol.
When i said how special that was to me ,he reminded me that the times we spend together in the ”park” are the best times he ever has.
so now we are more determined than ever to expand their imagination and interaction with family and friends.They enjoy these times better than going to theme parks and movies!YES! We have done something right,,,
This is a super giveaway and i would so love to win this prize pack for them.Thank you Jumpstart…..
alwaysatryin at gmail.com
http://twitter.com/nannato5/status/5423218185
nannato5 twittered this giveaway,,thanks again
alwaysatryin at gmail.com
My daughter LOVES jumpstart – we have purchased several of the computer games – she would love this!!!! My daughter is very adventerous and loves imaginary play! Thanks!
The fort/play set in our backyard is the sight of many battles and moon landings. Our two boys love to let their imaginations run free there.
On rainy day, we like to build a fort in our family room. We use an old table and tons of blanket and pillows. Our sons take flashlights and pretend they are in a cave….maybe they are cavemen…..”ROAR” goes the dinosaur is often heard along with squeals an giggles.
Tweet! http://twitter.com/Facetwit17/status/5423785135
While eating at a Mexican fast food restaurant, we pretended that we’d have to move to Mexico immediately. So all the way home the kids came up with dangerous things on our path, like crocodiles and dinosaurs and snakes, and we had to battle them to get on our way. (All the while, my husband was teaching our kids some Spanish words- so sneaky!) We had so much fun that the kids were very disappointed when we pulled into our driveway.
Miss Serenity is all about dress up and hair. Her favorite part of the Jumpstart game is creating her avatar. She has already asked Santa for the Wii Game.
Our favorite imagination adventure is creating forts with things around the house. The kids love to use the chairs, blankets, boxes, pillows and just about anything to create a tent. They could crawl in and out for hours!
countrygirlcitylife@live.com
Tweet Tweet!
http://twitter.com/BHBarbie/status/5427930895
countrygirlcitylife@live.com
When my son was younger (he’s 11 now) he used to love to use his imagination. We would make up scary stories when we went for walks in the park. He loved to be scared for some crazy reason. He still remembers the stories. My daughter is 2 and is just starting to use her imagination and is so funny with it. She is s story teller and we love to encourage her creativity!
tweet
http://twitter.com/SmallSlice/status/5428259031
Mine and my childrens imagination is not like others children’s imagination . We imagine a abuse free world and a world where chidren do not go hungry. A world where every child has a parent and where every child feels loved and gives and receives love.
We use my blog to blog against chid abuse and We tel our personal stories about abuse. When my husband and I adopted 4 chidren this past June we was not sure what tomorrow holded for us but we could and did use our imagination and dream of a better tomorrow. The things my chidren imagine are becoming a reality but unfortunally that is not so for so many children in the world. We would love to win a WIi and use our imagination to bring reality into our household. Family fun nights with the children!
One of the things i have taught my children is your imagination can take you all the way across the world! We went camping this summer and used our imagination to imagine we was laying on the beach and it worked! We may of been laying on a lake and not a beach but that vacation is something I know I will always remember and it is something my children will always remember.
Your imagination can take you as far as you allow it to, to a safe home to Paris or just to the next day.It is one of the very gifts our God gave us.
Thank you for the chance to win.
I tweeted http://twitter.com/trinasbabies/status/5428682821
We like to pretend we are being chased by pirates and we have secret hiding places all over the house where they can’t find us.
My husband and I like to play a game with our young son. We pretend that our fingers are a bee and we say this (my dad used to play this with me):
Bumble Bee Bumble Bee come from the farm
Sting little baby under the arm.
and then tickling ensues
My 3 year old daughter LOVES to play that SHE is the mom! Sometimes she gets so caught up in it! She even gets a little upset when I am not “obeying” and starts to sing a song “When my mother calls me, quickly I’ll obey….”
My son made a fort in his closet and before bed my daughter and myself would go in there and read book by flashlight. It made him feel like he was camping.
We love the Jumpstart computer games! My kids build elaborate houses for their doll and they love to play ‘big life” where they are the mommies or daddy
My children planted a fairy garden in our yard this year to attract flower fairies. They regularly built houses for the fairies and spent hours looking for them and talking about them. We’ve had lots of fun pretending there are fairies living in our yard.
We like to go for imaginary car rides here. Each person picks a place they’d like to go, and we “go” there. With the little kids, it’s usually a made up place with all kinds of fun and interesting aspects. The older kids usually pick a place they’ve actually heard of. But, shhhhhh……..don’t tell. A few of those kids would NOT be pleased if they found out I told others about our game.
I also tweeted:
angiescircus ”I just entered to win the Ultimate Escape Prize Pack at http://blog.jumpstart.com/w…! #jumpstart.com” before November 16, 2009
less than 5 seconds ago from web
My boys love to build forts and create all sorts of scenerios. It’s fun to get on the floor with them and hang out in their forts, it’s sort of a giveaway for our entire family.
Creating opportunities that encourage imagination are extremely important, and if anything, this makes me more aware that we need to “get away” more often.
Tweeted! http://twitter.com/babesandkids/status/5435109624
My Boys love the wii and love to learn, your game would let me give them playtime and know that they are learning something good.
thank you for your time!
J
I have 5 children & imagination has always run rampant in our household. It is to be expected, as I am an avid reader & grew up on Grimms Fairy Tales, thus I shared them & numerous other stories with my children. Walking through the woods we always expect fairies & gnomes to be hiding in trees & banshees are often causing trouble in our house
My childrens favorite play tool is an old little tikes boat thats been around for about 15 years…every child has played games in it from pirates, to adventurers, to astronauts & some they never did share. It’s interesting how each child saw it as something else. Often I wanted to throw it away & then the next little one would climb in & a new adventure would unfold 
plb8156@aol.com
I tweeted for a bonus entry
http://twitter.com/plb8156/status/5440415979
plb8156@aol.com
We are all about imagination at our house…we have transformed our boring minivan into a “pirate van” and it makes our mundane errands into adventures!
We use our imagination by going outside an collecting things from mother earth to make things,leaves for wreaths,pinecones to make ornaments,an little rocks an stones for decorations,we paint an it gives the kids a chance to look at something an see what else it can become,an its fun an we get outside too
I tweeted;http://twitter.com/vickiecouturier/status/5450317200
Our favorite imagination adventure lately has been with giant monsters coming to attack us while we are outside and they have fire balls. We throw them cookies, giant marshmellows and other yummies to make them slow down. Lots of running around!
I just tweeted!
http://twitter.com/myfamlovesme/status/5454083830
We have lots of imaginative adventures around here with my two kiddos (7 and 3). They love to act out their favorite stories, especially from history or mythology (this morning they’re acting out Beowulf!). My son (7) loves history and our biggest adventures have been starting to take quick trips to real historical sites. The biggest hit so far was the Statue of Liberty in September. Since then he’s played at building the Statue dozens of times.
My kids liked the book inspell… and decided to play they could hop in and out of their favorite stories. Lately they play in a combination of Harry Potter’s world and Redwall’s world.
I have to say that the most imaginative adventure I ever witnessed my kids involved in was when we were over at a friends house while I was babysitting. One child was a “funny dog” that could only move by scooting around on their back, one was a sea monster that liked to hide in dark caves, and another “drove” around in a Little Tykes car. The sea monster would faint if it saw a dirty sock while the other two would faint if they saw a lego. They had dreamed up tasks to accomplish without fainting while the others tried to make them faint to prevent them from accomplishing their tasks. This game went on for hours and they all had a fabulous time! There were two 8 yr olds and one 4 yr old playing.
My son is loving anything monsters now and we use puppets, blankets boxes, anything around the house to build our own monsters that are silly and fun.
My kids love building forts with blankets, chairs, and boxes so I went and bought them a tent. Inside the tent, they color with their blendy pens, tell stories to eachother and pretend they are having a camp out with flashlights and marshmallows..
Here is my tweet
http://twitter.com/dahliamomma/status/5467040564
My daughter and I like to build forts out of card tables and chairs and blankets and play house or dolls inside. My lil son and I love to play hide and seek throughout the house, usually to the theme of cowboys & Indians.
My daughter has tried Jumpstart and enjoys it quite a bit. We do not have a wii console but would love to win it and try out the jumpstart wii game as well
Here is my tweet
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=joanieatwater+jumpstart
My son, now age 6, has been a jump start fan for several years. He is working with the 2nd and 3rd grade levels at the moment and was waiting impatiently all year for the online game to add more difficult material. It is his absolute favorite computer game.
He and his preschool friends began an amazing adventure last year which grew to include just about everything he did, at home and at school. Even now that they are all in different schools their magic fantasy world lives on when they get together or play alone at home.
They created their own super hero team, The Tuff Team. DS has a super hero identity which is top secret. Their favorite stuffed animals became trainees and then members. I am a also a trainee, the only adult I know of granted that status, but have not progressed at all. The members all come from other planets, like my son comes from the planet Burn, and he can tell you how big the planet is and how hot, ect. There are histories to their characters. It is very involved.
They boys would sit together in class and make what amounted to storyboards for the teams tv show. Each adding to the others work. Their teacher let them record “episodes” on a tape recorder. In their minds it is real, the way only a childhood fantasy can be, and also a franchise -complete with merchandising.
At home DS creates codes and anguages and about anything else you can think of to support the team. Every building toy, he owns is used to make gadgets for the team. He has asked me how they can get their show on tv and has told me he wants to be a television producer when he grown up, so that he can develop the tuff team channel. He has told me there are computer games and video games and all kinds of merchandise. But the prices at the tuff team store are very reasonable, I think you can buy a car for $5, and that is before he runs one of his sales. The funny thing is he does not get very into the merchadising of other existing products, because he would rather have Tuff Team stuff.
Because this is all top secret, and I get in trouble every time I tell a friend about it, I had to ask permission to post here and enter the contest. The thought of a life time membership at Jump Start, so his kids will be able to play too, won him over, but he asks that you keep the secret. His other reason for agreeing to let me tell you about Tuff Team, is he thinks he may need help from the Jump Start team to create the Tuff Team computer game.
My daughters love playing mermaid. I have some fuzzy scarves that you can wear like a dress. My daughters would put those on and swim/slide all over our wood floors pretending they were mermaids swimming in the water. They would do this for hours and hours!
We find adventure inspiration from great storybooks. Reading about Jamestown? My children become John Smith and Pocahantas! Reading about the poky little puppie, my kids turn into the puppy and his siblings! Reading about the very hungry caterpillar? Well, the children stuff themselves at lunch time! What a wonder the mind is!
My kids and I play a game when they need to clean the upstairs that holds their bedrooms and the play loft.
They are a princess and a prince and I am a dragon.
Of course, I am a toy eating dragon.
They have to save the kingdom of toys from the dragon before I come and eat the toys all up.
I stomp around and tell them something that looks yummy and start reaching for it, and they will run and pick it up and put it away. I get mad and roar and blow fire, but the toy is saved, and then I see something else that looks delicious…
It takes a little longer this way, but the kids giggle when they get the toy before I eat it and I get mad, and they run like crazy to get the endangered toy.
It’s all about making a not so fun situation more fun, right?
We like to make up long, involved stories when we go on family walks… usually something with hot lava and pirates and robots…
My mom saved all of my Little People toys from when I was a kid. It is so fun to hear and watch my kids’ imaginations run wild when they play together.
My Husband and I set up a tent in the living room with blankets and pillows and than we make up stories to tell to our six month old, we pretend that we are camping and than take an afternoon nap under the tent. It it something fun to do with him, he loves it and we get a kick out of it.
My kids, 4 and 7, love boxes. When we get a package in the mail, we save the boxes for them to play with. They have used the boxes as houses for small stuffed animals or toys. They have also used boxes for things like boats or trains for them to sit in. It is so funny watching one of my kids trying to squeeze themselves into a box!!
My son turned his painting/dry erase easel into a jumpstart clubhouse. He keeps all his Jumpstart cards, certificates, and jumpstart artwork on the board. On the shelf of the easel, he keeps his gems/shiny rocks. On top of this easel, he keeps all of his jumpstart books/workbooks. He keeps his other jumpstart toys (computer games, laptop)under the easel and hides out there. On the back of this easel, he created gears out of construction paper to recreate the loading screen from the online game.
When my sisters and I were young we lived on a farm. We would go out to the barns and play pretend. We would use our imagination to create secret clubs that only we were allowed to attend. We would hold meeting, make pretend phone calls, and even block the door so our “scary geese” could not get in. We were very afraid of them and their honks. We would also always use our imagination and set up office in our basement and pretend that we were working by doodling on pads and answering our telephones. Such great “Imagination Memories”.
Tweet http://twitter.com/agiveawaydaily/status/5509528952
My kids have such active imaginations, nearly everywhere we go gets turned into another planet, the jungle, or whatever else pops into their little minds while we are out and about. Our favorite place to play is the woods behind our house…it has been the setting for many imaginative games!
hi there
My son really loves cars and car racing. So we use our imaginations and have a car race around the house. We put on helmets and my son even has a steering wheel he uses…it’s lots of fun!
Tweeted at http://twitter.com/justicecw/status/5523639358
We live in the world of pretend. My daughter has an imaginary unicorn, we talk about fairies daily, and I think she really thinks she is a princess…
We have 4 girls with very active imaginations. Everyday is an adventure. We had Jump Start for a few months and it was great. They still use things they learned while playing it. We go on hunts of all kinds and everywhere. I would be thrilled to win this pack for them … let the adventures begin!
My imagination died a long time ago, but luckily I have three little men (and one big one) whose are going strong.
Especially Hubby’s. He’s always thinking of fun things to do.
Last summer, the dudes were really interested in pirates. So, Hubby went to the store and bought an antique looking box. He found a piece of 8 (we got it from Disneyland), some foreign money (from a trip to Europe), some jewels (from Mardi Gras), and some candy and shoved it inside. He buried it in our back yard.
When the dudes came home from the visit with Mimi they found a letter from Pirate Brown Bottom and a treasure map in their room. Can you say EXCITED?!
He helped them follow the map and dig up the treasure.
They were so happy, even though the stuff inside was essentially useless.
#2 slept with a sword under his pillow for two weeks to protect it from bad pirates (since apparently the ones that left it were the good kind).
They are still talking about that adventure a year later and they have the “treasure” stored in their room in the back of the closet, you know, for safe keeping!
One day my girls were outside with their Polly Pockets and found huge mushrooms. They played for hours with those tiny dolls under those giant mushrooms. They created their own magical fairyland in our backyard.
I also love it when they find things outside like acorns, berries and leaves and make their special mud recipes. They are so creative and I love that they are always using their imaginations to play and have fun.
http://twitter.com/afamiliarpath/statuses/5539336646
my tweet
To get the kids to clean their rooms. We pretend that I’m a good witch and also the bad witch. If they do a great job the good witch is happy and we go to the park or ride or bikes. They get to choose and they are the princesses. If the bad witch has to come out then then they have to clean more and they have to give up something. Cleaning is fun and I haven’t had to play bad witch all year.
The way my family’s favorite imagination adventure is playing ghost, it’s a game my 5 year old son made up. Everyone gets a blanket and we run around saying whooooooo. And seeing who can tag who first. once you are out you sit on the couch until everyone is caught. It is a lot of fun and I love that he came up with the game behimself. He has had a lot of hearing and speech problems so whatever we can do to encourage speech is awesome in my book!!! Our Doctor actually recommended that we get him the Wii. I thought that was pretty cool for a doctor to recommend it and we are hoping to be able to get one soon. My sister, who is a teacher told us about jump start and I am excited to get both the Wii and the jump start game. What a wonderful christmas it will be!!!
Sheets and blankets are a short route to fun in our house. There are forts and tents made from chairs, beds and boxes that provide the perfect place for them to hangout and make up new games and stories.
Tweet Tweet, I tweeted
http://twitter.com/Tillman4/status/5547330657
we like to makes tents in the living room out of sheets
I have two boys and they learned with jumpstart programs and I also work at a child care center and our preschoolers use these programs everyday. Thank Jumpstart for the great programs.
When we were in Orlando Fla. this summer, we (the family) played kim possible in Epcot center. It was a blast, esp for the kids. What a great way to use your imagination.
carole
I tweeted, http://www.twitter.com/carole43
OH this is an EASY one! We play this game almost every night. I started playing it when my now sixteen year old was just 2. My 10 year still loves to do it. My toddlers are the BEST at it. We go on dream adventures. Like most parents we read to our kids nightly. After the story is over it’s time to dream up our dream adventure. The kids get to pick a destination, like the beach. Then we close our eyes and each person gets to tell us about what they see in their imagination. One might say, waves. My 4 year old son will often say, “A football”.. .even if the destination was Mars he’d still bring a football. Then, with our eyes still closed, we talk about things we’ll do on our adventure. My ten year old is fond of riding unicorns. When we have the whole scene set, bags packed and all our adventurous activities mapped out it’s time to get tucked in. We give kisses and promise to meet each other soon in our dream adventure. I love some of the great things the kids say that they’ve dreamed about when morning comes. This little bit of bonding and imagination building has worked great for the times when Daddy is away on business or with the grandparents who live far away. We’ve even visited a few of the Jumpstart Worlds!
We love to play secret spies. Our kids are 1 1/2 and 3. So we set up colored shapes on a door and they have to push the combination written on paper to open the door. Then we lay socks on the floor and the kids have to jump and squish the “snakes” to rescue their favorite toys. Each of their toys will have a map leading them to a secret location. On the way we have to pass traps. These change every time we play. Sometimes its bouncing ping pong balls into a laundry bin, some time its playing Simon Says. After they get pass their traps they go to the hidden location. There they find a snack and take it back to their hideout/tent. After snack, they usually set the games up again and tell hilarious tales about things we need to do and avoid(like the snakes). This game lets them have fun while learning and they love to make new adventures.
My tweet
http://twitter.com/jlbeast319/status/5548101763
First of all, I twittered
http://twitter.com/binaspad
Secondly, our imagination vacations can vary, as there are 5 children in our household. But I would say the best would be when they were all small enough to fit on the bed with me and I would start and we would pass it to the next person for a sentence. We wound up on the moon, at a water park, sleeping in a hotel that landed on a shooting star, eating pizza (made with moon cheese) wondering how on Earth we would get home
Ah, good times, good times.
Card castles. They are fun to put up (especially if you have a thick rug where you can stand one card up on its own) and then they are garages for toy cars, homes for princesses, mazes, anything! They can be high or sprawling, and sometimes there will be an outhouse! Now add dominoes for people. Line a whole bunch of people up on parade going to the castle. Then everyone gets tired and falls down!
We love to use our foam construction blocks and kitchen set toys to pretend like we are living in a floating spaceship. We always end up on the moon because the foam is kinda bouncy
and it helps us stay afloat in the universe. We also love making a pirate ship out of sheets, towels, foam blocks and couch cushions! Thanks for the great giveaway!
My daughter has a fascination with Space right now. Together we talk to Mr. Moon and ask him about his day and what he can see from way up there. And, when the sun is setting and the clouds turn pink, we steal the cotton candy and put it in our pockets for when it’s too dark to get any more.
Before bed each night, we talk about what we’d like to dream about. Since we are taking a family vacation next year,w e talk about what we’ll see and experience.
It’s so fun having kids and re-experiencing the pure imagination all over again!!
Thanks for the chance to win.
I big puffy heart JumpStart!!!
Tammi
Tweet!!!
http://twitter.com/MyChaos/status/5552119303
My boys love to pretend that they are super heros.
They love to pretend that they are saving kids and saving the earth from “bad guys.”
We are a family that loves crafting. We use our materials to create masks that allow us to become whatever imaginary character fits our current fantasy. We make capes, crowns, and gowns from our fabric stash. We unleash glitter as our fairydust and confetti as our “purple rain.” Macaroni and some twine transforms into our royal jewls. With a little imagination, anything is possible.
WHENEVER MY GRANDSON COMES FOR A VISIT, HE LIKES TO PRETEND HE IS CAMPING. I PUT A SHEET TIED TO THE COFFEE TABLE OVER TO THE SIDE TABLE TO MAKE A TENT. SHUT THE LIGHTS OFF, GIVE HIM A FLASHLIGHT AND HE IS A HAPPY CAMPER.
Our favorite car game is how imaginative you can get with songs. We take songs, real or fake, and make new funny lyrics. It is a great game to get your imagination working and you have to become really sharp and quick at it. The kids love it and always want to do it.
I tweeted this giveaway at http://twitter.com/JCHARRIES/status/5556963823
My adventure was great! I built a pirate ship out of cushions and blankets. You had to be careful because you might fall into the water! Good thing we brought some food on board because we were starving! We had pizza. When mom said to put it away. I said “But MOM, I still want to play!” Ahoy mateys!
My grandson’s imagination is so vivid that he’s convinced classmates (fellow 2nd graders) that he’s the best Lego builder on the planet. He often takes pieces from one set and uses it as a part of another, with a different role.
this prize is fantastic
Our daughter loves to fly, so she pretends that she is a stewardess and plays out the part of checking if my seat belt is on (while I’m on the couch or at the computer) and then pretends to serve me drinks and food with her play dishes.
the boys play in woods and its their pretend battlefield.
The boys love to dress up in their super heros costumes and go outside and play super heros to the rescue!
great to win
My crazy kids love to play dress up! We have so many costumes! You name a super hero, or an animal, and we have it! It’s so fun for them to pretend to be the thing that they dressed up in!
My boys love to dance to music! They especially like the Fly song from Peter Pan the musical, because they can pretend that they are flying!
I love pretending with my kids! We take turns telling stories to each other! It’s fun to pretend you are in a far away land!
My grandkids love coming over and playing dress up at our house. It’s fun to watch them run around and pretend they are super heros! I have the best grandkids ever!
What a great prize! My grandkids love swinging on my 8 seater swing and pretending they are on a pirate ship! It is so cute to hear them talk like pirates!
My boy loves the tub! When he is in the tub he will pretend he is a pirate, or a fish, etc. It’s a great time to use your imagination!
My kids want a wii for christmas so they can play this game and the new “toy story mania” game.
please make their xmas special. pick them.
My daughter likes to pretend she’s her littlest pets, thanks for the contest
We used to have a cardbox box in the backyard where my son pretended to drive a racecar. He made all these sounds to make it sound realistic
I actually borrowed this game from that show “Whose Line is it Anyways.” We have a toy box full of “props” and we take them out and make stuff up on the spot. It is a lot of fun and really uses your imagination
I posted this giveaway on twitter at http://twitter.com/GMERRELL/status/5575460572
Travelling into space in your mind and seeing the Earth from a fresh perspective
When we go to the zoo, the kids come up with crazy ideas and adventures involving the animals!
My son and I used to tell each other bedtime stories and our favorite was when we jumped on a helicopter and visited theme parks, zoos, fairs, and all the cool places we’ve always wanted to go.
I was always big on forts when I was a kid, so it makes sense that my kids would be too. We make forts everywhere, the living room, their bedroom, even outside. We make believe all sorts of things, like we’re in a castle, hiding out from the monsters or bad guys, on an awesome vacation. You name it!
Tweet http://twitter.com/OutnumberedMama/status/5579439115
My kids actually play imaginary games with their stuffed animals and act out everything from school to American Idol.
Tweeted:
http://twitter.com/WendiP/statuses/5579566591
We often go on family adventures. We pack a lunch and get in the minivan. We drive somewhere that we have never been. Maybe a beach, or to the mountains. We then have what we call a car picnic. Then we explore the unknown area. The kids just love going somewhere new. Its fun heading out and not knowing where we will end up.
We have a little plastic boat that can be filled with water and used as a pool. Sometimes we use it with water and sometimes we leave out the water and just play in the boat. We go on boating adventures to all sorts of different places. My 3 1/2 year old picks the locations we travel and we look for animals and landmarks as we steer the ‘boat’. It’s lots of fun!
My son loves to create an imaginative story by having each of us contribute, and our favorite adventures are the ones that involve us in outerspace. We get so involved, it is pretty cheesy at times, but we love it. We even put up tents in the house and make believe they are the homes of other planets. When we go through a “tunnel”, it’s either a black hole or a portal. It goes on until eventually the little space ranger saves us all from doom.
My son Tyler uses his imagination when he’s playing with his lightsaber with his friend Alex , pretending they are both Jedi’s.
when we go to the zoo my grandkids are always trying to assign the animals some grand activity that they will perform
At least once a week, after it gets dark my daught and I head out to the back yard with either flashlights, or some flashing light up ‘light sabers’ (her I dea not mine I swear
), and we run aroudn the back yard ‘exploring’, and occasonaly doing battle with dragons, giants, but when Godzilla shows up we run (she loves Godzilla).
We have a box of dressup clothing. My daughters dress up as fairy princesses and we have a little tykes play house we pretend is the castle. Each time we do it the costumes are more elaborate as we accumulate more and more dress up stuff.
We go on “adventures” often. Sometimes we go just into the backyard to play or for a hike at the park down the street! But calling it an adventure makes it so exciting and feel like a real getaway to my little man.
I am part of a family full of artists, and we spend most of our freetime creating. My daughter lives in a miniature world, my son lives in a lego world, and my husband and I live in our ‘castle’ surrounded by ‘loyal subjects’ and ‘fierce marauding dragons’ . fortunately the dragons can be ‘banished’ or ‘transformed’ with the help of the royal offspring and the many loyal subjects.
Imagination helps us creatively solve our problems, and face situations that might otherwise feel overwhelming.
My kids favorite rainy day fun takes blankets and clothes pins. They build tents and camp out, forts and ward of the enemies, ships and sails to hunt for treasure. Blankets are the best compliment to a child’s imagination!
We are homeschoolers so we use our imaginations almost daily to delve into topics-acting out our history lessons, creating projects for science, writing vivid paragraphs, etc. It is so much a part of our day!
We love playing like we are on a pirate ship, so we all jump on the couch. Then once 1 person touches the floor they become a shark. They then try to pull the others in so they become sharks too. It turns into hours of fun for the kids. Jumping from couch to couch, squealing in delight.
Tweeted this great giveaway http://twitter.com/shopwithcents/status/5595852710
Our favorite Imagination Adventure is playing “Market” in my son’s Play Kitchen. We pretend that one person is the clerk and the others are shoppers. my son also likes to pretend that we are eating the play food. It is a lot of fun and a great way to use our imaginations as a family. Thanks for the chance to win
Tweet: http://twitter.com/braggingmommy/status/5596316026
My grandson is captivated by firemen and firetrucks. He takes anything with length, such as a jump rope and pretends he is putting out a fire. Whoever is chosen to hold the ‘other’ end of the hose is also the one who needs to make the sound of rushing water. He will then yell that he is spraying water on the fire and the fire is going to get wet and quit burning. It doesn’t matter what he picks up to play with, it typically always turns into a firehose.
Tweeted – http://twitter.com/NCBelle36/status/5596450708
My favorite imagination game is and always will be having tea parties. My daughter pretends to pour the tea or coffee in her tea cups and pretends to make brownies or cake. She will tell us that the coffee is to hot to drink so we need to blow on it. I’m such a little girl at heart that I absolutely love playing this game with my daughter.
I tweeted.
http://twitter.com/summer2mommy/status/5596546237
Now that our kids are older they don’t play pretend as much. They do love to use their imagination and play outside though. We live in the country and that creates a great atmosphere to open up their minds in the fresh air and they can run and play with their friends. They love to play fun basketball games and ride bikes.
to pass the time in the car, we would make up stories. We explained that stories had to have three parts: 1. who it is about 2. problem or what is keeping them from getting what they want 3. solution. Each child would supply one of the parts then we would each tell a few lines and “pass” the story to the next person
We like to incorporate Star Wars into our funtime and vacations. Please accept my entry. Thank you.
A cool activity grandma invented was playing “light-up zoo” under the bed. She’d set up all the little toy animal figurines under the dark bunk bed, make sure the lights were out and send her 3 yr. old grandson under with a flashlight to discover all the animals in the dark zoo. Needless to say, he loved it!
Another favourite is watching my daughter play pretend with her eating utensils. Anything and everything turns into play people as she acts out the little stories going on in her mind.
We have had so many adventures it would be difficult to choose, but there is one that sticks out in my mind. There was this one time my daughter, her friend, my husband, and I transformed the living room into an exotic castle. We used every blanket in the house and created the ultimate castle. There was so much room to pretend play. My daughter and her friend decorated the living room. Then we went even further and ended up making the hallway into a dungeon. We had so many chairs stacked up and blankets hanging from pins to make the dungeon a REAL dungeon. When it got dark, we crawled around with flashlights, acting like we were on a treasure hunt. My husband actually hid the treasure from the girls and if they found it they could have it (it ended up being two piles of fruit snacks!!!) It was so weird playing pretend like that because I had not done it that extreme in a long time. We had a blast. Thanks for the giveaway.
Well this is quite the list of stories….. good luck picking!
As a child we were always building forts out of blankets, cushions and heavy books, So how could a deny my kids this same sense of adventure? One Saturday all of our children (we have 6) were playing in what was at the time the “playroom” together so nicely, that I had to check on them. When I reached the entrance to the room, the size of a good sized living room, I was surprised to see the entire room covered in blankets! They had turned the whole room into a fort, each child had their own space. No one was excluded including the at the time 1 1/2 yr old twins! The played for hours in their fort. I love it when they use their imagination and play nice with each other!
Thanks for this chance to share my story!
Oh, what a fun giveaway!
Our favourite, I think, has been when the kids were afraid of “monsters under the bed” at night. Our cat, SugarBear, has a secret identity, you see. She is a SuperCat at night, whose specialty is to scurry around and chomp the monsters! 
My daughter loves to pretend she is an explorer avoiding hot lava (sidewalk cracks) and dinosaurs (pedestrian walkway lines) when we walk down the street.
My kids are constantly making up stories and games to play. Currently, there are 5 children in the backyard chasing each other over the empty, painted cardboard boxes (houses in a “city” I believe) and playing superheroes/villains. Pretty soon, that game will probably morph into a game of zombies and monsters as the sun will be setting. And then? Then the tears will begin as I force them to come inside because of the sudden drop in temperature!
My kids love to make tents in the living room and pretend all kinds of adventures.
I tweeted: http://twitter.com/Mom24_4evermom
THIS IS THE PERFECT GAME FOR THE FAMILY TO PLAY AND LEARN FROM…
My kids love to sing and dance!! They are always imagining they are some new rock star and they go all crazy with jump spins and kartwheels and all sortsof cool moves and the songs are too funny for words. They also make huts and pretend they are at the drive-ins or on adventure in the forest camping somewhere unknown.
sorry wrong email address above so here is the right one.
One thing we do is on road trips we play the ABC game w road signs…” I see an A in that sign which says” which is a great time passer for 4 kids, ages 18, 12, 8 & 8. It also promotes reading & spelling skills!!
When Daddy takes the kids swimming they play underwatercastle..pretending they are hunting for different items under the sea. Our family would live in the water if they could. This has made water play so much more fun & helped our kids get over their fear of water..now it is hard to keep them out of it!!
Tweet @aleshamom4
Being out here in sunny Southern California, we had to make sure that we visit all the different theme parks and museums in the area. We try hard to make sure that for every theme park (Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, etc.) that we visit, we take in a place of cultural refinement. Los Angeles has some great art musuems and the are fun for the whole family. Learning is a cornerstone in my families lives.
My son loves the Chronicles of Narnia Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. One of our most favorite imagination times is to reenact the play. I always get to be the white witch and my kids are Peter and Lucy. We have a “magic wand” and if I say “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” before they run away they turn into stone.
tweet
we imagine that we live in space
We love reading books and stories so we turned an ordinary walk in February into our own exciting story. We went outside with no special intentions except a walk on a local college campus. Then we found a cell phone and turned it into a story about a lost princess from another land who needed help and called her cell phone. As we walked around campus we found other interesting places, art and ideas to use in our story. Then we went home and wrote it up together. Later we took photos to go along with the story and shared it with friends. It was a fun adventure and incorporated all the exciting things we love in stories – princesses, faraway lands, talking animals, books & libraries and lots more.
Imagining we are camping…complete with a “tent” made of a sheet pulled over furniture. Fun times!
My kids love to stretch their imaginations by reading. Hank Zipzers books are a favorite.
My kids love building a fort using blankets hanging from chairs and the arms of the sofa. They play in their fort for hours.
My twin girls have imaginations in overdrive. Just yesterday we played doctor,veterinarian,chef,dancer ,librarian and student. Playing hospital and delivering babies is big in our home,the other day we delivered twins named ‘diamond and earring’!Their favorite,however is when dad brings them home an appliance box,they will play all day long ,transitioning from role to role with an uncanny ease!
The boys always come up with these amazing adventures involving animals or aliens, etc. They create huge worlds with their imaginations and play endlessly in the house and outside. Of course arguing sometimes about who can be an ice dragon or a lion, but it is great to see them up and being creative!
We’ve loved Jumpstart World since we were beta testers for it. It fits right in with our style of creative learning. As a homeschool family, using a method of cross-curricular thematic studies, once when studying the US states, we transformed our living room into an RV. We rented dvd’s of scenic tours of each state and “drove” across country. We even dressed for the weather and sampled the “local” cuisine.
My daughter loves riding the turkey… very imaginative and fun…please keep the new and innovative content coming!
JF
We love to imagine Princess Fairy Tale adventures!
My 7 year old son loves rocks and geology. We have a small piece of wooded land. While we were working outside one day my son discovered an area covered with rocks. He ran for his rock hammer and magnifying glass. He now calls this his own quarry. He spends hours working in his quarry searching for geological finds and having adventures. We have piles of rocks that he has “mined”, and limitless possibilities for future discoveries.
I homeschool my two little boys; Bobby,7 and Robby, 4. I incorporate Jumpstart Learning Activities in homeschooling them because the fun they get out of it provide them lots of motivation. Both Bobby and Robby enjoy Jumpstart 3D Virtual World.
Visiting Adventureland and the new Futureland provides them lots of excitement! Creating their own virtual self and dressing up in Jumpeez isalways a fun and creative activity for them. A stopover in Storyland is stimulating. A trip to Marineland is definitely a thrilling activity. They enjoy helping the fantasy creatures fight the Punk-Punks!
Finally, at the end of the day, my Robert StrongFalcon and Robert HappyTree likes to see their name in the Hall of Fame.
For sure, there is no boring day for my adventurous homeschoolers because of Jumpstart! Even if we don’t win in this contest – I want to extend my thanks to Jumpstart! They time I get to spend with them and all our adventures together are PRICELESS!
My youngest son loves the book/song Going on a Bear Hunt, after school let out I had found a cute stuffed bear cheap at a thrift store, I hid it out in our woods (4 acres) I set up a couple things like the book to help lead the way… We went swishy swashy through the grass, squelched through mud and so on till we spotted a bear (although he didn’t chase us) We still had fun mimicking the book!
When my older daughter was small, she had a cousin who was the same age as her, and they had many, many wonderful adventures. They loved playing in the yard, walking down the dirt road, and discovering small pieces of glass and stones along the dirt road which were their treasures. When my younger daughter came along, she didn’t have a companion to play with, but she does very well on coming up with her own adventures. One of her favorite pasttimes is to ride around on the golf cart with her grandmother. She is the navigator. They have lots of adventures from heading to Grapevine Village to Trashpile Village. Just this week while on one of their adventures, they were in search of an island. It is amazing at the imaginations of little ones–if only those imaginations could stay as active as they grow older!!
Sydney loves Jump Start. We have searched high and low for the Wii game here in canada (the first release) and have found nothing yet. She loves all the different lands and asks to play a lot. We often copy the games ideas and incorporate them into games here at home that we play like counting bottles and then adding one more to see what the total is. She loves it and is learning so much and having fun. Can’t wait to see if this wii game makes it to Canada.
Lorrianne
our favorite advertures are making forts and and we love do treasure hunt around the nieghborhood so much fun and so much imagination
Our family escapes to the northwoods each year to experience nature and all the adventure that comes with a spring camp in the northwood. We love Silver Birch Ranch and all the activities it has for children or all ages.
Once our youngest gets one year older we will also return to tent camping and all the memories that surround that experience.
Thank to JumpStart for adding adventure to our lives during those off times when we are all caught up in work, school and events. The online world has been a welcomed adventure into our home on several occasions, with 4 children it is the most difficult to manage equal use of the computer, they get so excited to play and achieve!
Our favorite adventure is when we are out hiking in the woods. We imagine the fairies and gnomes hiding under the mushrooms and in the tree holes. It helps the time go by fast when we are on long walks.
I started getting jumpstart when my oldest nephew was in pre-school. He is a sixth grader now. All of my kids and my neices and nephews have enjoyed growing up and along with Jumpstart. Looking diligently now for the 5th and 6th grade versions in the stores. I remember when my younger nephew started on Jumpstart pre-school. he would make the radio with the songs sing for hours. He especially loved the haircutting goats, the rocking pigs but most especially the I”m a Horse song. I think I still know all the words- three years later.
http://twitter.com/suelee1998
My three-year-old son loves to pretend he’s hunting like his grandpa…. he’ll put on his camo pants, get out his squirt gun and hide his stuffed animals around the house!
My son and I love to bake together, but as you can imagine we can’t bake every day. So recently we got a play kitchen. My son and I “make” (fake) dinosaur cookies, 70 layer cakes, apples (yes we make them!), and edible sandcastles. OR course these things are plastic toys, Duplos, and wooden blocks. This is especially fun for both of us as cooking is our thing!
http://twitter.com/SumSkybaby
Our favorite is a game we bought, where you pull fish out of the container to get you started using your imagination. They have different words on each fish and you have to tell the story all together using the words as a guide.
My children love faries. One day while playing outside we found a little pink piece of shiny fabric underneath a little mushroom in the backyard. Of course this gave me the perfect opportunity to use my imagination. I explained that we had just found the fariy’s blanket and that if we look closely we could find the door to their tiny world. We spent the rest of that day in fairy land. Now where ever we are we all keep a look out for different tiny things in our great big world that will lead us to fairy land. We have a fairy scrapbook to collect all of our findings with a brief story of our experience with that particular fairy article. We all love it!!
My 2 sons both take their imaginary “kids” farming with them when they play with their toy tractors. They also do take their “kids” to the store with us.
I have a 4 year old who loves to makebeleave, jumpstart helps her imagination come to life.she playes for hours and enjoy’s every ninute and she’s learnig at the same tim. so thank you
My husband and my daughter both have very excellent imagination, they’re adventures varies from day to day but are mostly influenced by shows that my husband and my 2 year old daughter have seen. Sometimes theyll act out a scene from the go, diego, go show where my daughter will yell out “ayudame!” as she dangles of the edge of the bed which is about a foot and half high, pretending that shes animal on a cliff that needs saving, with my husband saying “ill save you” and then saying “pull,pull” while pulling my daughter to safety. We have a playroom where the floors have foam mats and where she plays and keeps her toys. When my husband cooks she will copy what her dad is doing on her own little play kitchen. When we play hide and seek she loves to count to ten although she ends counting from 1 to 10 all over again and we end up just coming out of hiding because she just keeps counting 1 to 10 in loops and then she would say ” i got u mommy, i got u pappy”…..
My kids love to imagine wild things are living in their rooms. They make up stories similar to “Where the Wild Things Are”. Each day they add more and more to their stories and at some point I have to stop them and have them start over, usually about every 2 weeks. It’s become a fun bedtime ritual. The story is different everytime.
tweet http://twitter.com/Luv_to_Save/status/5630556487
My kids love to use their imaginations and go on safaris. We crawl around on the floor whispering to each other about which animals we see. It’s quite fun and very cute to see their little minds at work!
I’m the mother of five boys who loves to cook. During the winter months when their dad is deployed and the weather is bad, we have a cooking “class”. My preschoolers love to pretend they are chefs and its cool to make dinner/dessert together!
My 3 year old love being outside. When the weather is bad, we have to stay in so we don’t catch colds. So, on days like this, she enjoys pretending she’s a real cowboy, and riding around on her imaginary horse (tricycle) and rounding up cows, sheeps, and chickens, or what ever she happens to see out in the pasture (our living room). It’s such a joy to watch her using her imagination, and making those rainy depressing days shine with joy.
Our favorite adventure usually involves running. Chasing a bear, for instance today brought a lot of joy!
(Entering for a game for our nephew!)
Our family uses our imaginations all the time. Our daughters likes to build things with old cardboard boxes. They often build a tv and report the “news”. They also like to imagine what they will put on their Dad’s model train layout. However, our favorite thing to play when we need to pass some time is I’m Thinking of Something. One person will think of something and everyone else will try to guess what it is. Sometimes it’s something we can see, but not always. Our oldest daughter was once thinking of the atmostphere. it inspired a lot of guesses and laughs.
We use adventure and pretend when we do a pretend store. The kids earn tickets during the week for good behavior and also looks tickets for bad behavior. At the end of the week they get to use their tickets to go shopping. I dress up as a store keeper and set up a store of goodies for them. Things I pick up here and there that they might like. The items have a price in tickets. THey have to decide how many tickets they want to use and if they want lots of little things or one big thing. Once they have decided we use a cash register to ring up their purchases and put them in a bag. This has encouraged them to make smarter choices as they dont want to lose any tickets and want to earn them instead. Its been an adventure for all of us and sometimes they come to the store dressed up also. They always love to see what “venezuela” has for them at her store. Thanks for the great products!
Our favorite imagination adventures take place on each kid’s birthdays. My mom plans an old-fashioned treasure hunt with clues and prizes for every age group. She has yet to hide the booty in the same place twice! Thanks for the chance to win the totally awesome prize pack!
My boys love to put a blanket over the kitchen table and pretend to go camping or pretend they are on another planet. It is so fun to watch them!
My favorite imagination adventure was just last week. My 3 year old kept saying she wanted to go for a walk I kept telling her it was to cold to go. So later that night she still had it in her head she wanted to go for a walk so I said ok lets go for a walk she got all excited and I grabbed her hand and I said lets go, so we went for a walk through our house lol and I was like aww look baby girl a bird she looks and said aww mom thats so cute so we kept walking and then a snake went right by us I pretended i was scard and so did she so we took off running and wow she could not stop laughing. it was soooo cute!
I told my other 2 kids kids about it and they was all amazed thinking I was for real like I really seen them things in outr house it was way to cute.
I also tweeted the giveaway
http://twitter.com/Ericka082/status/5636558064
Our most favorite imagination game to play with three children is also a helpful cleaning out the pantry for mommy game. Ha. We set up a makeshift store, taking everything out of the pantry. One end of our kitchen bench is the check out line with a register. The rest of the chairs we move around to stage as shelves filling them up with items from our pantry. While the kids play, mommy cleans the pantry. Good times.
We have three kids in our family and love to play outdoors any chance we get. Some of our most fun imaginative play occurs with our small parachute (the kind with the handles around the round edges). The kids’ favorite game is the Magic Popcorn Fort. First, I make some popcorn to have on-hand for our snack. Then, we “make” popcorn using various tennis balls and soft balls. We hold the handles of the parachute and wave the edges up and down to make the balls pop up. Once all the balls have popped off the parachute, we lift it up and then pull the parachute over our heads and sit down. Now, we’re in our secret fort, and we can eat our real, “magic” popcorn snack! The kids often peak out of our fort to make sure that there are no villians trying to get our magic popcorn. Once we’ve eaten the magic popcorn, the kids can go out of the fort with their new powers, ready to conquer any bad guys in the backyard.
My two children LOVE Jumpstart. My daughter starting playing when she was 3 and she is now almost 7 years old. She has grown to love the math in the games and has sparked my son to LOVE the game. We play many fun and educational games that we make up from playing Jumpstart. Their favorite math is counting the pennies in Jumpstart so to teach my son math, my daughter made up a counting cars game. So whenever we are in the car driving, she askes her brother to count blue cars or green cars and they love to pretend they are the characters from Jumpstart. I love to watch their imagination soar…
Thanks for all the years of fun and learning!!
Is there anything more magical to a child’s imagination than an empty cardboard box? Ours become trains, ships, cars, stores, restaurants, lemonade stands, circus booths, cots for sick stuffed animals, robots… The day we bring home something new in a big box is an event not for the contents, but the box itself.
I uses to be stationed on Guam when I was in the Navy .My daughter was born there. My kids including the day care kids like to pretend that we are going to Guam and imagine what we will do when we get there. Susan
as a military wife and homeschooling mom to four, i have used jumpstart products many times – we love them and winning this contest would be such a blessing!
At two and four, my girls have vivid imaginations. I love to hear them playing in their rooms, making their animals talk to each other, having picnics and adventures. Its so fun to see their personalities come through in their imaginary play.
My son has spent hours singing and acting out the songs from Jumpstart Animal Field Trip. He especially loves to be the leaf-cutter ants running away from the wasps.
I have 3 boys and they love to play imagine games. We keep the boys halloween costumes and put them in a basket for future play. They boys dress up and we save the world, battle the bad people, or just fly around.
My eldest son has begun to try to make movies out of their adventures!
My family is a huge Lord of the Rings fan. My son has a toy replica of the sword, Sting. He carries it EVERYWHERE! We imagine that he is hunting Orks. I do not like to promote violence, but he has fun slaying imaginary orks and whatever bad guys that may try and attack our house:) Even Daddy when he is pretending to be a monster! Once he slays Daddy Monster, he will kiss him to make him feel better!
Although many people consider tv to be a no no, we frequently use it as a jumping off point for imaginative play. In the car, we pretendt to be riding in Thomas the Train, looking at the sights. At home, we might pretend to be Max and Ruby or pretend to “build words”, like on Word World.
We do the same thing with books…
My 4 kids love playing outside and playing with sticks and “cooking” amazing meals in the tree house. Imagination is amazing…
My favorite adventure that the kids and I take is when we go to this special place here at the beach called the point. The kids and I play in the water and my daughter is the mermaid princess. My son is shark boy and I am a dolphin. We have had so many adventures at our special little piece of paradise. We play house with the little hermit crabs. We build sand castles for the fish. We have talked to the sea goddess thru shells. We make sand angels and dance in the water. I will forever treasure those moments. I hope that one day when my children are grown that I will get to have the same adventures with grand children. The ocean talks to you. You just have to listen.
My son just loves it when we go hiking through the woods. We make up lots of games and pretend play with leaves, trees, and his favorite…sticks! Plus we come across animals, bugs, and more. Every hike is a new adventure. We never know what we will discover.
My daughter loves to be a princess! And of course JumpStart adventures are fun. Esme loves the slides and ziplines etc.
We posted about this at Winning Readings: http://winningreadings.blogspot.com/2009/11/jumpstart-escape-adventure.html
janemaritz at yahoo dot com
My sons 6, 4, and 2 make a pile of pillows and love sacs at the bottom of the stairs and pretend they are running and diving into an ocean full of all crazy sea creatures. They pretend they are so brave in battling the sharks and playing with sea horses. I love watching them do that.
Once, when money was really tight and my kids were itching to get away, we took our tent and set it up in our little backyard. The rule was that no one could go out of the tent and we had to keep the windows in the tent closed, so we could imagine that we were really away somewhere camping. We played games, had snacks, watched a movie on my husband’s laptop and all slept out in the tent in our backyard. The kids loved it and I must admit that I woke up in the middle of the night with that “Where am I?” thought, so I guess we really did trick ourselves into believing we were on vacation somewhere. We’ve been fortunate enough to be able to go on several camping trips since then, but the boys still talk about our backyard camping trip and I think maybe we’ll do it again this summer, just for the fun of it!
Tweeted. http://twitter.com/dezroute/status/5653076525
Imagination adventure? Yikes… my kids are forever imagining something. Right now, seeing as it was just Veteran’s Day, they are creating some crazy game out of unpacking the dishwasher… it involves them being medics in WWII, and they are now debating what nationality they are going to be for this game. Russian medics seem to be winning right now. I haven’t exactly been able to understand the exact purpose of this little game, but hey, if they want to pretend the dishes are medical supplies that they need to carefully store away in order to heal the allies, and as a result my kitchen is cleaned up… well, who am I to ask questions?
My daughters love to build forts and build at least one a day. We recently turned the whole living room into a fort by turning the sofa on its side and spreading chairs around. There was lots of blankets involved and and clamps too. We normally end up reading books in there and then act out what we read about!
Well we try and do alot of imagination games regularly, but usually the best ones are when we are away from home where it is quiet- like on a hike, where we think about how life used to be, what we would use for everyday tolls, etc. Also I love to just lawn in the grass and look at the clouds and think about what they look like.
With 3 young boys, everything is an adventure. I think the cushions from the family room furniture are used more often to make a fort, space ship or boat than they’re used to sit on.
My boys love to play with their toys & create – well – boy stuff. They hunt, they play war, they fly. It’s never ending & so much fun to watch. Thanks for the wonderful chance at the giveaway!
My 3 1/2 year old son LOVES to play with cars, so we will build huge garages with his blocks and park each one of his many, MANY cars inside! He even makes sure that there is room between each car so the “people” get in and out! He also loves to build forts with the couches, kitchen chairs, and blankets. He pretends he is camping out!
My son LOVES all things matchbox cars, firetrucks, trucks, etc. We make bridges, slides and all sorts of things throughout the house for him to drive along. It’s great and really keeps him entertained.
How in the world could we have adventure in our family without our imagination?!?
Our favorite thing to do is take something completely different from what we want to do and make it fit the situation to create adventure.
My son: ‘cooked’ plastic necklace bead spaghetti in the (well sterilized) bowl of his (never used) potty seat stirring it with a drumstick spoon.
My daughter: dresses up and has fashion shows with nothing more than a blanket and a bandanna.
My husband and I: try to seize every opportunity to create adventure in the everyday stuff found around us; ducking under water arches in the crisp fall air, snagging “the whopper” from a small pond, the ever popular blanket fort. It’s not about the money we invest, but the time we spend as a family. And our small imagination led adventures will beat out climbing the real Mount Everest any day.
My children LOVE to make up stories using their stuffed animals. We carpool with another family to school (about 20-30 minute drive) and they ALL make sure to bring an animal. It is so much fun to see how they all work together (6 children) to make up creative stories using their animals to act them out. If someone forgets an animal, they use a pencil or hairbrush or whatever they can find to be their character. We’ve had magic donughts, a guy who ate words to make things dissappear, flying animals…the list goes on and on. This has been going on almost daily in my car for the past 7 years, and I am always excited to hear the next story. So much fun!
Rebekah
In the summer months we would always play on the swingset and pretend that we were on a rocketship. This created hours of outdoor fun!
My daughter loves to pretend she’s going on an exploration by using couch cushions, blankets and a tunnel. We encounter lots of imaginary animals as we hop, crawl and slide through her imaginary world.
We love pretend play with play silks! Blue for the sea, yellow for the sun, green for the grass, red and orange for flowers – so much fun! Add a few stuffed animals to the mix and the creativity could go on for hours!
I am a nanny for a 4, 6 and 12 year old, Jumpstart Games are wonderful!
Whenever we would travel as a family we would play all sorts of imagination games in the car. We would spell out creative words from license plates and look for fun colors on billboards. The kids loved it and it created hours of imagination adventures while traveling short and long distances.
We like to “camp out’! My 6 yr old and my 2 year old are crazy about camping and we often have a tent set up in the yard, garage, or the house! During the day, while my 6 yr old is at school, my 2 yr old and i often pretend camp in the tent in his room. We will read books, eat sandwiches, and play with the lights off and the lantern on. Currently, both my boys have a tent set up in both of their bedrooms!!! We love it!
Here is the link to my tweet!
http://twitter.com/crazymeg/status/5672080137
My 2 oldest daughters (6 & 4) love to put their blue comforter on the floor and play ocean and mermaids. On car trips, we also sometimes play “jungle” and pretend that we see different jungle animals.
I just tweeted about JumpStart. http://twitter.com/bstair79
I am a disabled grandmother of two, I recently purchased jumpstart for a yr for my 7yr old granddaughter and she loves it. It gives her something to do and its safe and besides playing she’s also getting an education with the games. I would love to purchase the wii game for her but with limited income cannot afford it at this time.
When I was camping, I took the girls on a safari. It was along walk to the dining hall, so I made up great stories about the wild animals and plants that we had to trek through. They got really into it, and wanted me to do the safari thing each time we went walking.
http://twitter.com/fangirljen/status/5684503802
Tweeted!
We are a Wii family and Jumpstart family. I saw it toys for the first time on the Rosie O’Donnell show with Whoopie Goldberg. That’s when I knew how to make sure my kids were geniuses.
Our quadruplets are developing such vivid imaginations at age 2 1/2. I love watching them interact with one another, and change their tone of voice when they are pretending. The other night they were pretending to be birds and were hoisting themselves up on the top of the couch and then flying down to the cushions. All while tweeting and squacking. Love their little minds!
Both of my children are close in age, and they love to pretend to be dogs, and feed each other, and beg from each other. They also love to pretend they are pirates, and their fave word is “ARG!”. Another fun game they play is ghost, where one hides under the blanket and chases the other…they do these games back and forth all day long, in between fighting over toys and snacks.
When things get rough, and one has a bad attitude, they “grab” and “eat” each others bad attitudes, and then give back good attitudes, which are gobbled back up! It’s very cute, and they do it alot…actually, recently, they’ve begun to do it to me, if I am crabby! lol
http://twitter.com/PickleSugarPlum/status/5687170381
My girls love to play “Shark infested Water” They float around on the raft in the pool and can’t let their toes dangle for fear of sharks! Of course, someone always falls off and must be “rescued”! LOL
My kids are all about making forts and wrestling right now.
We love to set up blankets over our card table and crawl inside and imagine we are somewhere else. My 4 year old likes to imagine a cave, or that it’s his house!
We have a Jumpstart game on our computer that we reciently bought and he loves it! This would make a nice addition!
Ever since we received the jumpstart for the computer Cole has all new friends and stories about what they do and who they are. The best is the robot who is his buddy in the game and is his BFF that helps protect him and keep the bad sea animals away from him …
. Yup he even goes into the water and doesn’t rust 
. I love here Cole talking about Fred, his face lights up and he guides him threw. Cole even tells Caden that Fred won’t play with him because he is only his friend … LOL
Well, this is a toughy. I have 7 children who are full of imagination. My favorite thing to ask is: What are you playing? Usually, the answer is “US”. Which means basically whatever pops in their minds. It could be a pirate adventure, or school, or fashion show, or a treasure hunt. It could be ballerinas, or spies, or house. Whatever comes up, it’s always “us.”
Recently, my 2-year-old, runs around roaring and yelling, “I TOO!” (translation: I’m a Sharptooth! from the Land Before Time series.) It’s too cute and scary!
My family’s favorite imagination adventure is to go camping! We sent up a tent of sheets and blankets in the living room, fill canteens with hot cocoa and plug in the electric fireplace to create the perfect camping atmosphere! My kids love that we can recreate the fun times we had during the summer, even if its the middle of winter. Thanks!
We got hooked on Jump start about 6 years ago when our oldest was three. He loved it and we loved it. The love was easily passed onto our second child and the two of them played all the time. I know that their imaginations were sparked and grew from an early introduction to the many world and adventures of Jump Start. We live where there is lots of snow for many months so my kids are pretty good at using their imaginations. Building forts using every blanket and pillow in the house and discovering new lands seems to be the most common adventures around our house.
We read books everynight to escape the day. Books are wonderful to take our imagninations out of the mundane into the story. We also paint or draw ideas of what we wish we were doing or what type of vacation we wish we could go on if it were able.
Our favorite imagination adventure is when we set up a tent in the living room and pretend were camping it’s a lot of fun that my kids really enjoy
My kids and I use our imaginations for everything:
The sandbox:
Is where we hide toys and dig for “treasure”
The hammock in the back:
Is perfect for a windy trip on the high seas and can be hard to stay on when the “winds” get moving too fast.
Our walks along the greenbelt:
has the perfect trails in our “jungle” where we look for monkeys and inspect the bugs as if we are from the moon.
Even when they are sick, we talk about the little people who live inside them and “fix” them, but they only work when the sick person is sleeping. It helps them sleep when they are not feeling well.
We imagine the tooth fairy, who leaves presents under the tree out in the front yard instead of money under the pillow.
The “Great Pumpkin” that takes a bag of candy (they leave out) and leaves a toy for them under the tree in the front yard.
Our life is full if imaginative play, mixed with the “real” stuff… so they learn to see the world as beautiful as they want it, even when it isn’t always pretty to look at.
My oldest son loves to play jump start. My two sons have created a whole restaurante called Coconut Dog. They sell all kinds of crazy concoctions but when I ask for Diet Coke, they tell me that they don’t have any but I can have some other strange thing.
Jumpstart has really blossomed my oldest son’s imagination and encouraged him to write more and even helped him read. It’s a great, great program!!!!
We live in an apartment complex so there’s not alot of open space; but one of our favorite games is a treasure hunt. First, my husband buries our treasure in the sand at one of the vollyball courts. The he draws a treasure map. My 5 year old daughter and I dress in our pirate gear armed with our map and shovels and head out for our adventure. There are obsticles to overcome,from crossing the ocean(the pool) or battling a dragon shaped tree come to life. We just love finding the X that marks the spot and finding real buried treasure!
Hi my son plays Jumpstart almost everyday and if he dosen’t get to he bugs me till he gets too! lol He loves it so thank you so much for creating such a great game for the kids to explore. I think one of his favorite things is to see the seasons change on the game he get really excited about that. My son is six and started playing Jumpstart when he was five, with or without his membership it is something he enjoys day in day out..
Thanks again
Happy mom of a content little boy:)
We love to listen to books on CD in the car. It makes a long drive to Nana’s house into an adventure. It makes the endless round of errands into a dragon battle with the evil prince! No more boring car trips!
My family’s favorite imagaination adventure is to take a walk in the woods behind my mothers house and pretend we are in a spooky forest and we have to escape. We pretend that trees are bad guys and we can only walk on the trail or we will get caught.
jennielee226 (at) gmail (dot) com
I tweeted http://twitter.com/jennielee685/status/5693969916
Our favorite imagination game is when we play evil forest monster. I wear this green wig that I bought online, and chase them with it while they look for things that I hid. Whoever finds the most stuff at the ends wins! shopgurl101 AT gmail DOT com
I tweeted: http://twitter.com/shopgurl/status/5695057210
I grew up on the West Coast, however, my 3 girls are growing up on the prairie. They know that one of my favorite hobbies is scuba diving, and eventhough I don’t get to do it very often we do pretend around the house. Swiming into caves (forts made from blankets and chairs) past rock faces (the back of the sofa) and finding crabs, fish, and octopus hidden under seaweed (pillows). The girls have played jumpstart online and love the game play, swimming, walking, jumping, etc. The 3D experience with their own character is what keeps them interested.
I just tweeted.
Cheers,
http://twitter.com/edkfisher/favorites
All three of my kids love to gather up some old sheets and clothespins and make a huge fort out in the backyard. They will pretend they are all kinds of different people from pirates on a pirateship to astronauts in outspace. An imagination is a wonderful thing for a child to use!
They LOVE trains! They line up the dining room chairs in a row, get dressed in their striped overalls and engineer hats, collect tickets, and off we go!!!!
I love jumpstart crafts. We did the bats for Halloween. The kids put them on the ceiling fan and turned it on when their dad got home from work. Thank you so much for your great ideas. We enjoy jumpstart sooo much.
Our favorite adventure starts with a question, “Where’s Caleb?” He’ll answer with incredible places he ‘is’ and things that he’s doing there!
I also tweeted (@leilay), what a lovely giveaway!
My son is a hoot. His favorite use of his imagination is to expand on his “comic book” series “Beyond Time In Space” about Bruce the omnipotent shark, Pyramid Man (who’s really a woman but no one knows except the good guys), Marble Man, Shuba, etc. They have all sorts of adventures — tonight I learned that Bruce lives in a house in Antarctica where there are no power lines so it’s very dark there, but it’s not cold because of all the dinosaurs breathing in his home. And he gets to our land by swimming in the ocean, but when he gets to the Equator, he has to hold his breath and swim really fast because of all the “hotness” there. I love the stories. He’s decided he’s going to create these stories as his career when he grows up, and his sister will be in charge of the pictures (and marketing). I love seeing what will come next!
I’m twenty-seven with six little children of my own (ages six and under), who do have imaginations and are always ‘building’ something, from ‘water towers’ with soup cans out of the cupboard, to ‘forts’ out of couch cushions; but the story I’m about to share comes from my childhood, growing up with ten younger brothers and sisters…
“Come on,” Anna yells to no one in particular, “let’s play Lost Girls!”
“Yes!” yell Theresa, Frances, Margaret and Rita, looking up to their big sister with excitement.
“Do I get to be the little boy that cries?” says Rita, who has the same role in this game every time. (After all, a four year old needs things to be simple, in order to be included in the same game as a ten year old, a nine year old, an seven year old and a five year old.)
“Yes, you do, ” says big sister Anna, thinking how cute this chubby, blond-haired, brown-eyed, little sister is. “You’re the best crier.”
Anna rushes upstairs to her room, pulls some jeans on under her skirt, puts on a long sleeved top and pulls her pony tail through a baseball cap. Anna is afraid of spiders and, where they’re going – “in the woods” – there are lots of spiders. Her outfit protects her skin from contact with creepy crawling creatures, and from raspberry bushes, which grow in abundance. Her sisters mimic her dress, but nobody is quite as well dressed, after all, it is a warm day outside.
They prepare a “picnic” of sandwiches and juice. This is going to be a long ‘game’!
The sisters tromp through the woods, running away from the people who are going to “take them away” and “split them up”, telling how their parents died in the fire, or were abducted by robbers.
Rita plays the part of a little boy they find crying in the woods, sitting in a tree, and something tragic has happened to his parents, too. So the sisters, out of the kindness of their hearts, take him in, and he becomes a part of their team.
They have to survive all alone now, without adults, and so they fish in the ‘pond’ , and ‘build a fire’ over which they ‘roast marshmallows’.
They find their favourite spot to spend a lot of time. It’s a sort of clearing in the woods, surrounded by trees, with a big hole of water in the middle. Here they make beds of branches. They make a ‘fire’ by building a tepee of wood and rubbing sticks Indian style, an art form they never master.
Theresa a tiny, long dark haired, dark eyed, beauty, has a deep love of all living things and loves to discover new creatures under logs and rocks. The other sisters look on with curiosity but they’re not quite as eager to ‘cuddle’ a fuzzy caterpillar, or hold a wiggly worm.
“What’s that?” Anna yells, to all the other sisters and their ‘adopted brother’. “I think they’re coming! We’d better cover up and move camp.” The sisters scurry about “hiding’ their fishing rods, scattering their beds, putting out the fire, with a ‘bucket’ of water from the pond. They all run and hide behind a fallen tree that obscures the path, and peek over. “I think I see them!” Anna whispers, “we’d better sneak further into the woods or they’ll take us away.”
Margaret, a smart, freckled faced little tomboy with a mess of reddish brown hair, has no worries about getting dirty as she wiggles along the ground like a soldier on a battlefield. She’s the best at hiding, and soon even Anna doesn’t know where she’s gone.
Frances is fierce, nobody is going to split her family up! She gathers her family close as they make their way through the woods. She dreams up traps to set for the ‘bad guys,” and enjoys watching them perish or give up and go back where they came from.
At long last they reach ’safety’, a clearing, with a big old maple tree in the middle, strawberry plants all over the ground, butterflies and wildflowers galore. Here they sit down to eat their picnic, and pick strawberries and make wreaths of daisies. It turns out that the bad guys are gone and they can now go home, to their loving relatives, who miss them like crazy.
My daughter loves to pretend like our family is a music band. She will give us all instruments (usually a spoon or something like that) and instuct us on how and when to play and she of course is the lead singer:)
I tweeted here
http://twitter.com/eclairemom/status/5701029666
Thanks for the chance to win
We are a Jumpstart family! My four year old plays with the same Jumpstart games on our PC that her 16 year old sister played when she was four! The games are timeless and are such a springboard for my childrens’ imaginations!
I love hearing my four year old sing Go, go, go to school, kindergarten here I come!” And my 16 year old chiming in…PRICELESS!
Boxes, you can imagine anything!
This may sound strange to some, but to us it was a scary thrilling pretend game. We would go to the cemetery behind my cousins house and pretend we saw ghosts—friendly, although by the time we left we would all be runningl
My daughter loves to pretend to be a teacher and all her stuffed animals and dolls are her students. She carries on conversations with them, gives them tests, and if they “Misbehave” she sends(carries) them down the hall to me(the Principal). I can certainly picture her teaching her very own class one day!
tweeted too
http://twitter.com/sleatham1/status/5702129902
Once the cold weather arrives in Minnesota, it is time for our family to snuggle indoors and take out our imaginations.
The past has made us farmers, astronauts, play actors and more! We’ve set up tents in the house and gone camping and tell stories together. As much as I love our time outdoors, I cherish these times with my children as well.
My son loves pretending that the surface we’re walking on (sidewalks, dirt, gravel, etc.) are hot lava, icebergs and safe ground. He makes me jump around if I walk on the lava.
My favorite imagination game is when we go on walks we pretend that the trees are giant dinosaurs and I let the kids tell me which dinosaur it is. If it’s T-rex, we run as fast as we can!
It started when my son was 4 yrs old, but now that his little sister is 4 and he is 6, they play traps and contraptions together! They search the house for things to make traps or contraptions (whichever it is that day) like string, paper, locks, toy alarms, tape, blankets, straws, paper towel tubes, clips, boxes, sticks….the list goes on! They create them inside or outside, depending on the weather. One time my son made a trap for his sister where if she tried to get out of a big circle of string, an alarm would sound! We were amazed at how effective it really was! They also like to create Rube Goldberg type contraptions with tubes, balls, string, cardboard, toy figures, etc. Over the summer they were outside creating traps for the groundhogs and squirrels who kept eating the veggies in our garden. Their most recent adventure 2 days ago was creating a trap for the neighborhood kitty so they could take the kitty back up the street (because kitty was obviously feeling a little cranky that day). Of course they didn’t actually catch the kitty (can anybody?!) but they had hours of fun trying!!!
Our favorite imagination game is when we go to “heaven.” I have a 4 year old boy and a 6 year old girl who love to imagine the fun things to do with their older brother, who now lives in heaven, instead of with us. They have come up with many creative ideas, including flower land and rocket day, but always with their angel wings on. It has been a great way to keep my oldest son a part of our lives while doing something fun together.
My boys take their toys and set up a whole game, that I have to choose a character and complete levels to get to the next area. I have to go thru each step like race or jump on a target that shoots me up in the sky.
My boys also pretend they are cats crawling around meowing all the time!
My kids like to pretend we live on a horse ranch. They pretend each other are horses and they gallop around the house (barn). Now if they would only like carrots as much as the horses do!
I tweeted: http://twitter.com/KerryBishop/statuses/5710033115
My girls love to play and Iike that there were challenging areas fpr different age group. We also don’t have extra money to have a subscription but, thanks for the free trial my kids played everyday!
My two kids are always engaging in pretend play. They have “adventures” every single day. Their latest adventure was “Lord of the Rings.” My husband had given my son a brief synopsis of the movies, including names. Last night, my son found a fake gold ring. Suddenly he was Frodo, and my daughter was Sam. Every time he put the ring on the finger, he turned into a monster. They were trying to “get past all the bad guys” so my son could through the ring into the “huge volcano!” I’m happy to say he succeeded!
Our kids are fascinated by pirates. So, we built a pirate ship out of our big king size bed. We used cardboard to make walls, and piled up pillows to make an eagle’s nest, and put a doll at the front of the bed (ship) to represent a lady. They loved it, and didn’t want to get out of bed!
Every adventure for my son is all about trucks………….
I would love for him to experience some other adventures!……….but he will still talk about trucks……….
My kids build forts in the living room, become animals roaming around, and right now may be horses in the back yard. At meal times, my boy transforms into a dinosaur- a herbivore for eating his veggies and a t-rex for the meat. Imagination is everything.
Walking to the store we jump the brick paths that are rivers full of hungry crocodiles.
(Thanks Zen of Motherhood for linking me over!)
Being as we homeschool, my kids are always coming up with crazy stories.
One day they will be scaling our climber as a mountain, then another day we will be coast guard rescue swimmers throwing ropes to save our people in a capsized boat. Thank you for coming up with a wii learning game. There needs to be more learning games for these kids.
My kids use their imaginations all the time. My favorite one to watch is when they are playing with their friends and they pretend they are in a magic treehouse story. I just love the way they really get into it! They have so much fun!
My kids favorite imagination game is building forts in our living room. It is so messy yet so fun!
We have five children, 3 of whom are adopted. They (mainly our adopted children) have had a difficult time learning to use their imaginations! It’s amazing to see them blossom. This morning, they all were pretending to cook in their kitchen and started talking about what things smelled like. “Mmmm….these cookies smell so….” and another child jumped in with “Cinnamonny!!!!!” Another great play time activity is playing in the “fairy garden”, a small area of our property where we have found almost miniature flowers and trees. My oldest daughter has fallen in love with imagination! Amazing to see!
My youngest son, is just getting into the pretend play stage and loves getting out the dress up and old costumes to play make believe with his older brother. Sometimes they’re ninja warriers, sometimes starwars characters or superheros, or their own made up characters all fighting the bad guys to protect their mama.
This new Wii game looks like a great way for my son with developmental delays to learn while having fun.
tweeted at http://twitter.com/1Blessedfamily
(I don’t know how to get the exact status line to come up. Anyone that can help with that!?!)
My child’s favorite thing to do that lets her imagination soar is when she thinks about the sneaky leprechauns. She can’t wait until St. Patricks day to set up a trap for him and hopefully catch the sneaky little men. Last time she made a WONDERFUL trap, but we didn’t quite catch him last time!
We like to imagine games involving shopping and cash registars. My daughter likes “money” games.
My daughters 3 and 4 love to take our sofa pillows and imagine them to be boats on our carpet of water. They pretend to swim and play. As for me, I am the hungry alligator.
My personal favorite was imagining there were tiny people living in the flowers in my mother’s garden.
It starts with “the box” of various papers, tape, pencils, pens, glue, cardboard, paint, rulers, scissors, stickers, stapler, paper clips, boxes, ribbon, string, ………and flows with the imagination.
oh wow! great giveaway. My kids love fantasy and anything involving animals. Our adventure would include both.
When we go to the grocery store, the kids and I pretend that we are going on a treasure hunt. We gather our supplies and load up the ship (car). When we arrive at the destination (store) we secure a row boat (shopping basket) and begin to visit stops around the island. We spend our time scouting out treasures on our map (shopping list) to load in our boat to take home.
This adventure helps keep the kids from getting bored on shopping trips and helps reduce wandering since everyone needs to be in the boat or holding on to the side.
We made a map of ours & surrounding communities and all the playgrounds and play parks around (there is alot, when you look). We go to a different one as often as possible and the kids “map it” and rate the playground (not enough swings, too muddy, etc…) Going to a different place everyday is like a new (and free) adventure and the kids love rating them.
After watching National Treasure as a family, I realized that I had a fabulous way to remove boredom and spice up our every day lives all the time! Now for Christmas, birthdays and just about any time I want to add a little adventure, I create huge (sometimes elaborate) treasure hunts for presents! I’ve made cyphers, maps and endless clues for the family to follow. My husband loves the adventure just as much as the kids!
I’ve just tweeted this generous contest here: http://twitter.com/preparedmommy/statuses/5723758873 @preparedmommy
One of my boys is very military driven and his favorite adventure is hunting down the Germans (I know, I know but he doesn’t understand what it means to be politically correct yet. He’s just fascinated with WWII). Him and his brother get so involved in this imaginary adventure and will play for hours.
Tweeted it! http://twitter.com/Krimsin/status/5723309963
So having an only child entertaining him is hard. He is high energy, and very mentally accelerated. We bought a house because of the huge backyard for him when he was about 3 months old. There are no friends his age here but the kids come over from time to time to play with the little dude because his imagination is non-stop! This contest is right up our alley, how fun would it be to put some of his adventures up so family around the country can see him grow! What a wonderful idea. I have never been to the jumpstart site, but know who I would share the extra memberships with! I was gifted a CD rom of your companies about 2 years ago, he loved it! Here is a glimpse into some of our adventures…
Most of the time his playground set out in the back is a drive up coffee house (as that’s what the husband and I frequent daily). There is also a field in the back that is a place he and our Havanese dog frolic through as lions. They are both short so its like exploring the grass lands. He walks the dog up and down the street, all the neighbors enjoy watching this (dog was a show dog before we got him, now he’s a spoiled family pet) as my son will run up the street with him like he is showing the dog. Over the past 2 years wizards have become in vogue with him so he is constantly out with his kids size rake to be his broom and playing “Quiddich” while I toss ball and he chases them. When we are inside due to weather we play SurvivorMan making forts out of things in the room, and nothing more. Tinkertoys are fish we eat. He love, love, loves the band Collevtive Soul and has their concert Dvd’s and plays his electric guitar along with them, and he draws them pictures and sends them to them via twitter.
Music, math, the environment, reading, spelling, and even politics are fair game if made fun to him. In everything we play, I try to educate on the sly, I believe that is one of the reasons he is as far ahead mentally he is, the others are the fact I have never been away from him other for a long peroid of time, other then school, and we read at least 30 minutes a day to him,everyday. I think he would love this game, and it would be yet another tool for me to educate him on the sly.
Thank you,
~Krimsin Mother to Logan (aka Little Dude) age 5
My son likes to pretend chicken is dinosaur.
My children and I go on “safari” every weekend! We take our bikes and explore the most remote places in our area….we create stories about each location and have fun coming up with the most imaginative story.
Thank you.
We sometimes starte at te slouds and figue out what they look like. Thanks for the chance to win!
I tweeted
http://twitter.com/hillary1971/status/5726978693
Sorry about my last post. My keyboard was sticking, lol! What I was trying to say was we sometimes stare at the clouds to see what they form.
My kids and I like to pretend we are princesses by dressing up. Also we like having pretend tea parties.
My nephews and I love to play “school”. I am the teacher and we pretend like we are doing different school activities. They love to pretend!
My cousins and I love to make forts in our living room! We love to pretend that we are in far away lands!
Our favorite imagination adventures take place in the woods behind our house. We like to rescue one another from caverns and hunt for magical creatures and treasures.
We live in a village near a marsh where neighborhood kids, both boys and girls spend the days foraging through the brush, searching for the lost soul of a little pioneer girl who befriended a young Native American. They are said to still travel the trails, hands linked forever, many moons after passing to a greater land.
My kids and their friends for years always remember to bring the trusted golden retriever, Cooper, as their spirit-buster. He is likened to the “Holy wolf”…well, except for the coloring and the eyes, and the confidence. (giggle). (Cooper is a sloppy face-licking maniac and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Literally.)
The surveyors love to search for ancient tools, sacred beads or pottery bits from the hallowed mounds of our village. (What they find moslty is various forms of scat that has them belly laughing and guffaws abound). Scat. such a funny word.
On the adjoining Yahara River, they venture out to the murky waters where pebbles become artillery as they rock-skip into the unknown, pretending to unhand the rival great warriors spirits. Flat stones become missles and mollusks become arrow tips when tied around a reed and flailed to the sun. A guide is always “on point”, humming to the
“waterspirit” in great hopes “IT” will find the group in good grace.
Our team are the Spartans, so they have been groomed to protect their land and respect what came before them. We do have ancient burial grounds where our schools have been built upon. Waubesa and Indian Mound.
As the little Spartans are getting older and a bit gutsy, a (not so sturdy) canoe placed haphazardly into the muddy shore becomes their warrior ship…to head off invaders of our GREAT Land. Rushes hide common day camo duck blinds that instinctively become rough-cut tents or a tee-pee. Winged creatures dart from the misty morning banks and kids scream in delight and horror at the half native, half winged angel of protection. (well…a duck or goose can scream what sounds to be “backkkCK”and interpreted as GET BACK (or else)!!!. (A heart-stopping moment for sure). The day travelers harvest berries and ponder which are tainted by angry spirits and those gifted to honor them for offering service to keep the lands clean and pure. Blackberries stain hands and mouths halfway to cheekbones. And as they gather their fluffy milkweed to make ready for hearty winter stuffing made from animal pelts. (brown paper bags from the grocer), they trudge back late in the day from the winding rushes along the Yahara and find their way back through the muddy marsh. Home.
They have been changed . They are warriors. Seekers. Protectors. Harvesters. Kids lost in an ancient world for just a day. But imagination it is not! It WAS a land of truth. And is NOW a land of truth (or dare). As the night beckons…this pack of muddy kids, berry stained and chasing the shadow of the retreating sun reflect on their adventure . A woods nearby becomes the dreaded black of night and once fearless warriors, run for their lives as the soft whisper of a young pioneer girl we have named Elloise Parker eerily fills the marshland.
“Frrrrieeeennnds…she whispers. Come and play again.!”
Our families favorite adventures take place in our family room with scissors, cardboard and a little imagination. We’ve made trains, space ships, cars and other modes of transportation to speed us on our journeys.
rsgrandinetti@yahoo(Dot)com
favorite imagination adventure would be to a Huge Tree house with 20 Rooms.. Also Twitter @colo09 thank you!
My little guy LOVES make-believe, so we all have to come up with our “day” and get into our respective “outfits”, for example today Daddy was a dinosaur going to work for the zoo, so he had to dress up in his dinosaur outfit and get his banana bucket ready to feed the giraffe’s!
tweeted too! http://twitter.com/frugalvicki/status/5731303927
My sons like to play cops and my husband and I are the “bad guys”. They chase us around and us. My 6-year-old likes to write tickets to my husband for being a bad driver!
I tweeted: http://twitter.com/ag1414/status/5731864809
What a great giveaway!
We live on a ranch in the middle of the Everglades. We often pretend it is prehistoric times and we are on our own. We’ve built Teepees amd lean-tos, hollowed out sleeping areas in dense thickets,followed animals to waterholes, foraged for edible foodstuffs…(how about armadillo and skunk cabbage? Actually very tasty.) We also search for fossilized coral and shells which are plentiful here. It is all great fun and we spend the entire weekend playing this way. You know what they say…The family that plays together, stays together! Oh, Yes!
For my daughter’s birthday last year, my mother-in-law gave her an orgiinal copy of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ movie! It’s become her favorite movie (Sorry, Lion King!) and – at least, once a week, she borrows a pair of my wife’s red high heel shoes and insists that the entire family joins her in reenacting one of the scenes from the movie! It’s great fun for the whole family, but – I don’t know why I always get stuck with playing the ‘cowardly’ lion?!
Tweeted:
http://twitter.com/LT38/status/5733663241
When I was about 7, my Mom, Dad, and myself would play “shrimping”. We had a house at the coast and Dad would pull a small trawl behind our boat. I wanted to go but I was too young to stay in the boat that long. Mom got one of those mesh onion bags and we would fill it with bottle caps. I would pull it all around the house and yard. Then my parents and I would “sort” my “catch” GREAT fun.
Our family loves to turn everyday life into an adventure! When the kids aren’t playing JumpStart – we like building forts and creating a magical adventure land of our own. The forts have grown from a few simple bed sheets into a combination of sheets, tunnels, clips, lights, music, and even a slide when we take over the swing set area outside.
Every night we have to go on a “shower monster” hunt…with our 2 year old daughter. The shower monster is either behind the actual shower curtains or the curtains in the living room!! Oh yeah…the monster is our 2 year old! She loves to “scare ” us!
we pretend we go camping in the living room in the winter since its to cold to go.thanks
We have a huge playhouse/fort at our local park. When the boys go, they stock up on power pellets (sweet tarts) and then they are ready to defeat whatever creature appears at the park. There are usually several of their friends at the park and it becomes quite funny to watch them battling nothing.
One of the ways we escape during everyday life is when our 6yo plays restaurant around dinner time. She will set the table, put on a special table cloth, take out a notepad, and allow the rest of the family members to order dinner from her! It’s very fun. Now if I could only convince her to play dishwasher!
nice prize
After moving to a rural area in the dead of winter, we had to get creative to fight off bordom. Our garage is very large, so we would pull the cars out and them have a mini circus. We were everything you could think of, and had a blast doing it.
My kids like to pretend that they are chefs. They make me all kinds of “gourmet meals” from things like cars and legos even though they have play food.
Charlie does not like to wait in the car when others are running errands. SO we like to pretend we are surrounded by dinosaurs, and Charlie is on the lookout to make sure his dad makes it safely back to the car. If a large truck pulls up next to us, Charlie will pretend it is a T-rex, and call try to map out a safe plan for daddy to get into the car. This is especialy fun if it is dark and rainy. Charlie can see dad as he is checking out of the store, and he pretends there are all sorts of dinasuars to watch out for. Wen dad is putting groceries in the back of the van Charlie tells him if ist safe, and then Daddy ascts like he too is on the look out. Mom of course makes it fun by pretending she is worried too, but reminds Charlie that daddy has a special cell phone that can zap dinosaurs easily if they try to come home with us. We sometimes pretend they do chase after us. And Dad makes a quick escape from the parking lot, avoiding all the large dinasuars.
When hubby designed the nursery, he painted a huge tree on one wall. Our adventures center around this tree! We decorate it for different seasons, we sit under the branches and tell stories, and it’s always there when we want another adventure!
We have a Cranium Fort and that is where my sons and husband have their best imaginary adventures. The fort can be a ship or a racecar, a castle or a submarine. It inspires hours of fun and keeps them out of mom’s hair!
Our family likes to “camp out” in our living room. We set up our tent, lay out our sleeping bags and enjoy microwave smores. Our fireplace sets the mood and we play board games, read books and make flashlight shadows with our hands in the comfort of our living room. It’s a fun and easy imagination adventure.
One of our favorite imagination activities is when we are out for a walk. We each take a turn to “Spy” something. For instance, I may spy a stone rabbit in a yard and I’ll give clues about what I spy is doing and what it is. We create a story that allows our treasure to go along with us on the walk. From the rabbit being our tour guide in the deep dark forest (park) or basketball paving the road as it rolls along. It’s silly stuff, really. However, it not only allows for the imagination to flow, but gets the kids to talking. Being creative. It’s fun!
seeryusfam@msn.com
We try to encourage a lot of creative play
Our three girls love to play dress up. With the customize feature in jumpstart world, they can play dress up there too!
My daughter has one of the most incredible imaginations I have ever seen. She is always coming up with new “adventures” for the family to share in. She wants to be a veternarian and learns alot about animals from playing Pet Rescue and other similiar games. We set up a vet’s office and treat all kinds of animals (mostly stuffed!). We have bandages, splints made of popsicle sticks, slings, thermometers, stethoscopes – the whole nine yards. It’s great fun for everyone and wonderful practice for her future career!
We love to do scavenger hunts as a family and try to use imagination whenever we can! A great thing we do is pick themes for where we are, One day might be Pirate Park Wednesday and we will go to the park and all pretend we are pirates.
As a mom of a two y.o. boy, I am always looking for an adventure for him. We use pictures and word flash cards to go on a “hunt” to find the object in our house, outside or at the park. We even have a neighbor who lets us use her yard and house from time to time. He loves it, and has started shouting out “I did it.” when he finds the object. We would love to win any of the items from Jump Start.
There is a big field right behind our house, and when my three boys were little it was the setting for many great adventures. Most adventures involved warfare, them being boys, but many times I would catch them on a wild African safari, pirate treasure hunt, and sometimes the field was a launchpad to outer space.
Tweeted here http://twitter.com/eswright18/status/5746071248
Thanks for the great giveaway.
My five kids (not all at the same time) and their dad hop on the ATV and travel through the wild woods behind our home pretending to chase wildlife from afar. How wonderful it is to see their imagination run away from them and take them to far off lands.
I have found that immagination is the best with very simple props. We have a set of cardboard “bricks” that can be used to create any kind of fortress, house, car, boat, etc. It is in expensive and the possibilities are limitless.
Sometimes my husband and I imagine that we’ve never met and we’re going on our first date!
I am a grandma of 4 and this would be great to keep them busy. Thanks.
We are “world travelers”. We have different places that we travel and we have to dress like we think they would be dressed. Everyone can where whatever they like. No penalties. We can do crafts, plays, videos, cooking or anything that is chosen for that day that pertains to the location. Everyone has to participate, even the dog. Sometimes he is unwilling, unless food is involved.
The kids and I always play on the hill behind our home. The kids like to pretend they are cowboys and indians. They chase each other around and play hide and seek. It is so fun to see their little imaginations and hear of all the creative things they come up with. I love that kids still use their imaginations even with all that technolgy has come up with now a days.
My three year olds always plays spongbob. he makes a kraby patty and is then plankton and tries to steal it. It is so cute
Our family loves to use our imagination for play when we visit our local state park. We pretend we are explorers and my children help me collect “artifacts” like neat rock and plants. We love to keep a simple map that we draw with the locations of each item we have located.
lisalmg25 at gmail dot com
I Tweeted this giveaway. http://twitter.com/lisalmg/status/5751768475
lisalmg25 at gmail dot com
My boys are always taking the cushions off the couch and pretending they are rafts floating down the river. They have to fight off snacks and jumping fish and sometimes a cushion turns into a deserted island that they have to search and find treasure before they can continue down the river.
We are lucky to live here in East Tennessee where there are many National Parks, Amusement Parks and Resorts. We love planning our adventures especially to the Parks where we ride bikes, swim, picnic, camp, fish, hike etc. Every time we leave we are energized and start to plan what we will do on our next adventure! Something to look forward to! Thanks! senekers@comcast.net
We have a fort in the backyard, and the kids often play “cowboys, and indians”, or “go to war”.
Its actually quite a peaceful exepriance though, its more talking and there is never any “violence”
When we got our new refridgerator, the kids were so excited to get to make a fort out of the box!
That box has been a fort, a spaceship, a diner, a classroom, an outhouse (yeah, I thought that was kind of weird too…), and secret hiding place.
My kids love to use their imagination, and I love to be able to play along with them!
My daughter and I always pick a theme for our park trips to keep everything interesting and fun
At dinner we like to go around the table and add a few sentences to a story. We usually end up laughing so hard and a bear somehow always ends up in the story. This game looks great for my 7 year old. Thanks!
growing up a lot of times I only got to watch 1/2 of a 60 minuet show, before it was time for me to go to be, so often I would go to be and complete the story in my mind. I would do sets, costumes and dialog. Helped me to develop a imagination. I always tried to let my daughters develop their own imaginations growing up. Lots of art, dress up, music and theater
Our daughters love to pretend to travel by boat. They also use boxes and pretend that they are everything under the sun. Planes, cars, boats, whatever. We pretend to travel through the jungle and drop animals off on various stops along the way.
I bought my son lazer tag last Christmas and we go to his club house and play like there are imaginary bad guys in there and we blast them all. So now even in the house he pretends to be blasting bad guys. He says things like mom watch out I got him for you. I tweeted the message and follow you too.
We love to make up stories when on road trips. We decide on a letter or a word and your part of the story has to start with the letter or contain the word. It is super great for their verbal skills and imagination.
My granddaughter pretends that she is a pilot of a spaceship and I am her passenger. We have lots of adventures along the way.
When my kids were younger we used to built forts every Sunday. We would line up chairs and hand sheets across them. The kids would eat dinner in them and even sleep in them. They loved pretending like it was a fort outside in a secret place. They would even make signs to hang all around the fort to let us know who was welcome to enter and when.
We love to play in the woods at my mom’s house. We make paths, little “houses” out of branches and make up a whole little world. It’s really fun!
My kids love to make forts that are like a maze throughout the first floor of our house. They get every pillow, cushion, and blanket from the house and go through painstaking efforts to build the sturdiest fort that they can. Then, it’s a matter of hiding from each other, chasing each other, trying to scare each other, etc…til they’re so tired they fall asleep!
We love to play all sorts of “rescue” games, princess and dragon, prince and villain, etc. where the kids get to rescue each other!
Tweeted: http://twitter.com/dewer421/status/5758238430
Since my daughter loves Twilight we make up stories of how we are out in the woods on a walk and come across some new friends. They end up being vampires and they become our friends, nobody else knows they are vampires except us.
We play lost on the river. My son’s bed is our row boat, that is surrounded by hungry alligators . We must try to make it shore (a green blanket on the other side of the room). We have throw pillows thrown on the floor, which represents rocks. You have to jump from pillow to pillow and not fall in the water or you shall be eaten by a gator. My son loves pretending and of course making it to shore.
Traveling the world together collecting birds LOL
Our favorite imagination scenarios are gathering up all the stuffed animals, dolls, blankets and pillows and make the living room into a “hospital”, complete with pretend surgery, check-ups, and a hospital cafeteria!
We play games—we love to play charades –it really gets the kids to think out of the box—and helps build their confidence —they have gotten so creative.
My 2 year old has a great imagnation. Trying to get him to sleep one night we had the stuff toys talking. all of a sudden one of the stuff monkeys stole my son shorts. my son almost in tears was saying don’t take my shorty shorts. It was so funny at how he got so deep in to pretend. The monkey gave the shorty shorts back and all was good!
As a young girl my grandma traveled to Missouri in a wagon train – that story was told to me when I was a little girl. My brother and I would get kitchen chairs, blankets and supplies – and pretend like we were in a wagon train going to a new place. After I had my kids, we also played wagon train – they loved it – it was a way they got to know their great – grandma – as they weren’t fortunate enough to know her.
Tweeted
http://twitter.com/azrosebud/status/5760323405
With three boys in the house its always an adventure! We love to build forts – that we call bear caves – and pretend that we are bears looking scavenging around the family room. When the boys want a really great time with their dad they like to pretend that they are Star Wars characters and put on their costumes complete with helmets, lightsabers and guns. They have fantastic battles and turn the whole house into a space station. Gotta love life with boys!
Our 2 year old grandson loves to play with toy cars. He drives them across and up and down the couch for hours just chattering away at them. I wish I knew what he was saying.
building forts in our backyard
My daughter has always been very imaginative when it came to play time. As an only child she sometimes had to entertain herself. One of her favorite things to do was always to have me hide things like her favorite doll and leave her clues to follow, she would then play detective and track down her doll.
iheartsweeping@aol.com
My kid set up “camp” under the trampoline
My daughter (she’s 5 1/2) and I play “Dance Fairies” where we dance around the house and pretend we are fairies in a magical garden. Depending on the type of music that is playing our dances can get really wild!
My children decorated the house for Halloween. They did not have fancy decorations. They only had paper and a red marker. They made it oh so scary. Thank you
we take the couch apart and get blankets and make a camp ground in the living room.
My 5 year old grand daughter (lives with us) has quit the imagination. She *pretends EVERYTHING*. Her favorite pretend game is to go to get us ice cream from the Ice Store. When we sit on the patio she rides her bike form person to person and asks what flavor of ice cream the would like, then the rides her bike to the *pretend ice cream store* and make all the ice cream and delivers them to us. On day her Papaw asked for a Hot Fudge Sunday, Hannah came back from the store only to reply to her Papaw ” I am sorry Papaw we are all out of Sundays – would a Thursday be ok”? lol. She loves the wii and is currently learning sight words and she makes sentences up using the words *WE* as Wii.
My four year old son has a wonderful imagination, so he is constantly coming up with something new, including imaginary friends, naming his stuffed animals and action figures, and creating elaborate scenes in our living room. However, the whole family likes to get in on it, too. Our favorite game is “the kissy monster”. My two boys really love to wrestle, and since I try to avoid that as much as possible, I invented the kissy monster instead. The kissy monster tackles the boys with kisses, and they have to try to escape in whatever way possible.
We also play the vacuum game. LOL When I’m vacuuming, the boys like to run by and I act like I’m going to get them. If they escape (which they always do), they get a point. Most points wins!!
My son like to turn his closet into a fort and then the other family members knock on his fort and become a character and ask to come in. My son will only let those who are characters he likes to enter his fort. We all have fun trying to impersonate the characters we have made up. Some of them are pretty goofy.
We use blankets to make tents to camp inside. We have picnics and cook over the “fire”.We keep bears away with our plastic swords that also double as fishing poles..
braaisjo at gmail dot com
twitter link
http://twitter.com/tlcfromtn/status/5766739549
Our favorite thing to do imaginatively with my daughter is to play house, have tea parties, and read / act out stories. MY daughter has quite the little imagination – and we are VERY proud of her. She always wants to play and create things. She loves cooking and eating all the crazy stuff she creates with her imagination. This prize package would be WONDERFUL for her since she LOVES playing Wii with the family.
THANKS!!!
Jill
what a great family game
Well, I play with my little girl and we pretend we are puppies and cats and other animals. She LOVES animals so that is why and then we say what the animals would say when something happens. We also play and make lots of animal play doh figures. Sometimes we go in the yard and play and play in the log fort my hubby built and sometimes we build forts inside out of blankets. When her brother grows up a bit they will be able to play together more.
The one thing that she did was when her Uncle was playing guitar hero with his friends she went up to the drums and started playing and was so calm and so into it. Really cute.
Tweet!~I just entered to win the Ultimate Escape Prize Pack at http://blog.jumpstart.com/win/escape! #jumpstart.com
We have family movie night, and try to do some activities that go along with the theme of the movie, whether it be decorations, crafts or food, or all of them!
My family’s favorite imagination spot? Our living room! It takes nothing more than a blanket, a couple of chairs, and some flashlights and we’re instantly off to an afternoon of fun in our circus/camping tent/secret hideout. You don’t need a fancy playset to have fun with the kids
We had 8 children. It was very busy!! Our children, even tho I was on a very limited budget got to go many places that families didnt get to go. Making sure the van or stationwagon was in good running order, I would save up money for gas and staying in hotel rooms, if not with friends or relatives. (I knew about every discount coupon or clearance bin for miles) Back then, if coupon said half off a hotel room, it meant it–not like today when they will think of a reason why its not useable!!!
I raised a LARGE garden and an acre or 1 1/2 acres of sweet corn and sold whatever I could. I also saved up all the rebate money from food/health and beauty products, that companies paid me to send in net weights, boxtops, etc from them..
On our trips we stopped at grocery stores and purchased items such as loaf of bread, sandwich meat, celery , apples, milk and carrots for our breakfast and lunch and I usually treated with a malted milk, hamburger, evenings.
There are many places one can go for free or very little admission prices.
Kids loved it and had alot of memories!!!
My son has a wildly vivid imagination. He can make a sword out of anything, and has several plastic ones. We sword fight in our house on a regular basis. We go from room to room until he (usually) is declared the victor!
I tweeted here: http://twitter.com/tesashel
Oh…where to start?? My kids play school, store, office, etc in their clubhouse which is in my laundry room/pantry! Or, we take the couch cushions and make a hide away where we can share stories and secrets! The 2 youngest are just learning to play with their kitchen and princesses with their dress up clothes.
Of course they are able to make swords out of anything they can find…paper towel rolls, sticks, tinker toys…. or the boys are masters at Karate! lol
Great give away and great products!!!
tweeted @ http://twitter.com/8isenough4now
I’ve got 2 special needs kids, so this would be awesome to work on various skills with them!
My daughter loves to be a mommy to her babies. She rocks them to sleep, sings to them, and reads to them!
Our favorite family adventures usually involve a blanket & Mom & Dad’s bed…. we have used that simple blanket as a tent to camp in our imaginary mountains… a raft for floating through the Amazon… a space ship… even more.
We really love JumpStart… it is the most worthwhile $8 we spend each month. My kids play together helping each other along & also separately. Fortunately, we have several computers … other wise the battles would be epic I’m afraid!!!
I tweeted here: http://twitter.com/preset_viewer
We love to set up Tents using blankets and pillows in our house! Then we play house with Barbies, serve pretend food, and of course we dress up and pretend we’re royalty! It’s so fun!
I tweeted! http://twitter.com/pricousins/status/5771999302
It’s an imagination adventure that first takes us through a portal to a dark (& dusty) place.
My children look for eachother, hold hands, and think to themseleves, “How are we going to get through this without help from Mom?”
5 year old: “I know! We can make a GAME out of it!”
Let’s slide through the dust, jump over the hotwheels, enjoy tea with Barbies, resist the temptation to eat the sweets we find, relax and read books, draw with pencils & crayons, play dress up with the awesome clothes, and come out with smiles and accomplishment.
It’s our very own “Under the Bed Clean-Up Adventure!”
Kids: “We really didn’t need Mom’s help at all!
My kids love to take covers and put them over things and make tents or pretend the floor is water and they have to stay out of the water.
We have mountains with cave in them behind our house. It is a very exciting place to explore & the kids imagination can take them everywhere from being a caveman, to hiding pirates boody, looking for dinosaur bones etc. The imagination has no limits. No tellling where the next adventure might lead to.
We love adventures in our family, traveling adventures particularly. We like spending time on ships, pretending we’re pirates argh!
We imagine we’re sailing around the world and there are monkeys in the rigging. So much fun!
Tweet: http://twitter.com/DanKerns
In my family, we like to pretend that we are models and play dress up with the clothes in our closets!
I have three kids ages 7,5,2 and the closest city that has anything to do is an hour away. We live in the mountains and my kids like to imagine Polar Bears that talk to their Dad about protecting our house and town from the wolves. While we drive to the city they will watch for the evil wolves and the wolf leaders so that they can tell their Dad to let the Polar Bears know were to find the wolves. My girls will also imagine the Prince of the Polar Bears taking them away on the horses to the enchanted castle. They watch for them during the cold months when they can’t go outside as often. We will take adventures on airport road that is right above our town looking for evidence of the Polar Bears. The kids really enjoy walking around the wood area surrounding our little town in search of the Princes and Bears.
Before the lots were built up around us, we could pretend we were in undiscovered land and stage expeditions for lost treasures