The Civic Imagination Project

NUTS AND BOLTS

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Brief Description: Everyday objects can have magical powers when we use our imagination. This is an activity where you can create a collage giving magic powers to objects that inspire you. You'll bring together your everyday life with your imagination. The time and materials used are very flexible. This can be a page in your journal, a piece in your gallery, or part of an ongoing scrapbook.

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Recommended Age Range: 5+  (younger children may need support/prompting)

 

Participants:  individual participation or in teams

 

Duration: A one-time activity takes 40-60 minutes. You will be building a scrapbook and can decide if you want to create one page, a daily page, a weekly compilation, a fortnight’s worth or even a month-long commitment.  You can repeat or extend this activity as long as you’d like. You can start a new collection, or build on previous one –if you’re feeling adventurous, you can build on your somebody else's!

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Materials Needed and Space Requirements:

• In Person: A pen and paper can be enough. You can add a lot on top of that: magazine or newspaper cutouts, print your own images, or any other crafts! You can look around you for inspiration. You can use what’s around you, like glue, glitter, paint, and other colors. Make your magic pop out by adding origami figures, crepe paper, foamy, pipe cleaners, pasta, tree leafs, or anything you like.

• Internet-Friendly Option: You can magic your day on any creative software where you can draw (laptop, phone or tablet). Feel free to bring-in your photo-editing skills and Internet memes!

 

Learning Opportunity: In this activity, you will draw a connection between everyday activities, popular culture, and your imagination.

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You’ll be working on a scrapbook. Yes, where cut and paste go beyond “cmd + c” followed by “cmd + v”. There is a collection of activities, each one will fill up a page in your scrapbook. You can decide if you want to create one page, a daily page, a weekly compilation, a fortnight’s worth or even a month-long commitment. 

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INSTRUCTIONS

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Browse

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Set a 1-minute timer. Look around you for one minute. Feel free to look around. Once the timer goes off, close your eyes. What objects do you remember? Was there something that caught your eye? An item in the room that stuck with you or that reminded you of something else? Now that you’re consciously aware of your environment, it is time to start your media collection (drawings, cutouts, photographs, crafts). As you’re looking through your material think about that you’d like to add magic to.

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Time to craft

 

On your page, you’ll make a collage from your collection. You can include characters that you saw on TV, things you ate, activities you enjoyed during the day– if there is one you disliked, you can add it too! Feel free to cut-out, color-in, or even bring other elements you have lying around to the page. 

 

Magic your object

 

From the items in your collection, you should pick one object to which you’d like to give magical powers to; remember, one object, one power. Ready? You can write down the object you chose and the power it now has.

 

Share 

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Magic is only magical when it is shared. Take turns sharing your story with the other participants. Maybe you'll see that everything around you is magical! Here are some questions you can ask each other:

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1. Can you give an example of how your magical object can be used?

2. Does the magical object impact other items or characters in your scrapbook story?

3. How can your object help you or others?

4. How can you object have a positive impact on your community?

5. What unfair situation in the world could your object change? 

6. How do you feel after doing this activity? If you look at the room around you, does it seem different to you in any way? 

 

Note: We suggest you always start with Browsing, all the subsequent activities can be switched around. Experiment with it! 

 

Pro-tip: Did you know you can Share before and after magicking your object?

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Complementary activities:

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If you want to keep adding pages or tiles to your collage collection, these are some suggestions for different types of stories in your magic scrapbook: 

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• Make a collage of a scene where the magical object was used.

• Write a story where the magical object was used.

• Create a story where an item of clothing has magical powers.

• Center your story around a magical food item.

• What if it is not a magical object, but several objects that help you create a magic potion? Write down the recipe including a list of ingredients and the power that each one adds. Create a collage of your magic potion. 

• Pick an object that would give you the same superpower as a character from a show/movie. How would you use it in your life? Make a collage based on that story.

• Think about someone (or something) that you usually cannot communicate with, how can your magical object help you communicate with them? (This could be a person, group, animal, plants, inanimate objects, etc.) Make a collage based on that story.

• Remixing magical objects: Identify a problem (or conflict/ or unfair situation) in your community (or family/around you/that you care about). What is the problem? How could your magical object(s) or magic potion(s) help with this problem?

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Print out the printer friendly version of this activity and the toolkit here.

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Print the character cards template here.