The Innovation Nation Mind Mapping Challenge

The Innovation Nation Mind Mapping Challenge

February 15th, 2013 by iMindMap

Brain boosting activities for your children

Here in the UK it’s the half term holiday, and if you’re a schoolchild this means a week of fun, freedom, and hopefully, some family time. So here at ThinkBuzan we’ve come up with some holiday tips to keep your kids occupied, thinking big and getting their imaginations flowing. By the end of the week they will have built up a Mind Map of their very own country; including its geography, food, wildlife, national sport and very own language.

Ever heard of the expression ‘a man’s home is his castle’? Well with the Innovation Nation Challenge, ‘a child’s home is their country’. Through using imagination and creativity this week, you and your children will be transforming your house into your very own “Utopia” through five Mind Mapping activities.

Exercise 1: Geography

It’s not all colouring in…but there will be a lot of that involved.

Activity: Create your nation’s name, flag and map.
Materials Needed: Coloured pens/pencils, paper

Step 1: Name your Country
Warp the name of your street, your house or items that are important or popular in your family if you are short on ideas. Mind Map your ideas to come up with a truly unique name.

Step 2: Create your Flag
Where would a young upstart nation be without their own flag? Declare your independence with vivid colours and objects which have meaning to your children. Get their input about what should be on your family’s flag, whether it is her rabbit or his lightsaber.

Top Tip:

If you have lots of ideas, or indeed, lots of children, I would recommend

dividing your flag into quarters so all ideas can be encompassed.

Step 3: Map out your Country
Help your children to map out a birds-eye plan of one floor of your house. This is something they already may have done at school, or you may have the floor plan in the kitchen draw already.

This is a pretty boring thing to draw, so you are going to get creative. Your house is now an island, and everything outside it is now a vast ocean. Draw your house as if it was an island nation.Remember, islands don’t have beds or cupboards; they have mountains, trees and cities.

Here is an example of how to begin to create your country. You can see the bed is now a mountain range, the bath is now a lake and the cupboard is now a cave.

There are no rules or limits to what you can or cannot do, but if you are having difficulty getting started, here are some ideas.

The possibilities are endless and this should really fire up your child’s imagination!

Top Tip:

If you want to make your map look older, crumple it up a little,

then flatten in out and place it in a shallow pan with cold coffee/tea for a few minutes. Leave it to dry on paper towels or use a hairdryer on its lowest setting.

This completes the first part of your Innovation Nation. Add all of these elements onto a branch of a Mind Map and we will continue to build this throughout the week.

So we move on to part two of the challenge. You’ve already created a name, flag and map for your country, and now it is time to ignite your innovation by making your very own language. The memory boosting skills of word and image association are the name of the game in this activity.If you missed part one, click here for Exercise 1: Geography

Exercise2:ForeignLanguages

It’s all Greek to me.

Activity: Many countries have their own individual language. So should yours. Using word associations and Mind Mapping develop a few words in your new tongue.
Materials Needed: Pen and paper, or iMindMap software.

Step 1: Select several common words or phrases
These should be simple things that are used regularly in day to day life. For example: greetings such as ‘Hello,’ and ‘Good morning,’ niceties like ‘please,’ and ‘thank you,’ and maybe even some short phrases such as ‘my name is.’

Step 2a: Think of three things that you associate with each word
It is a good idea to utilise a Mind Map to develop these associations, which can be images that come to mind when you think of the word, actions that one performs when saying the word, or simply other words that rhyme with it. I shall demonstrate…

Take one syllable from each association and use it to form your own word. So in this instance my new word for ‘please’ could be…

WISTRAYEEZE

Another example would be the word ‘Hello.’ The image that comes to my mind is a smile, the action, a handshake and the rhyme sadly is ‘Jello.’ So my new word for ‘hello’ is…

LESHAKJEL

Top Tip:

If you are feeling particularly creative, why not come up with your

own alphabet to accompany your new words?

Step 2b: The Sensible Method
You may have read this activity and, up to this point, thought it a little silly. And of course you are completely right! But where would the world be without those silly ideas? Tin cans with wings that shoot you over vast oceans, tiny pocket jukeboxes, flying to the moon sitting on top of 5½ million lbs of high explosives and of course, cheesecake.

However if you are still left unconvinced by my argument and are looking for a more sensible activity, here it is. Rather than making up your own language you can utilise the association technique to help your children start to learn a foreign language. This still requires you both to be very creative as some words are pretty hard to find associations for. For example

As a final task add a ‘Languages’ branch to your Innovation Nation Mind Map and populate it with some of the new words that you have come up with (or indeed, learnt).