Your Wild Imagination!
After a successful crowd-funding campaign, Adelaide mum and creator of Wild Imagination, Brooke Davis has now launched her nature play book for kids titled ‘Your Wild imagination’. A great Christmas pressie idea if you ask us!
From 3+ years old the book is for anyone big or small who wishes to be inspired. It includes over 20 nature play activities that can be transformed by your own unique creativity. Just one of the book’s many gorgeous images is featured on our cover.
As parents we are always looking for ways to avoid our kids spending too much time behind a screen. Brooke created Wild Imagination with the intention for kids to have more green time and less screen time, while allowing their imaginations to run wild and free.
We spoke to Brooke about her new book and inspirations:
Did you do much Nature Play as a kid?
Even from my earliest memories, I have always loved nature play. Climbing trees, exploring the outdoors, making potions and mud pies, and even fishing occasionally! It’s not an uncommon story – that my strong connection with nature was lost somewhere along the path of growing up. But when I had my own children I began to realise how different their childhood was to mine – too much screen time and not enough green time. So when I started to take steps to change that, I realised that many parents were in the same boat. In 2016 I established Wild Imagination, which is a nature play program that has seen about 20,000 kids enjoy nature play with us.
Tell us a bit about the content of the book? What will we find inside?
It’s called Your Wild Imagination because the activities are open ended and the images are there to ignite your imagination, not prescribe how it should look in the end. The book has more than 20 activities, plus school holiday projects and is best suited to kids aged 2 – 10 years but is for anyone who would like more nature and play in their lives. Some of the activities you can expect are flower crowns, wood whittling, magic wands, nature masks and fabric printing. It is filled with beautiful images and easy to follow instructions. There is a real focus on sustainability, so you won’t need to go out and buy a bunch of materials to get going. Mostly, you will be able to use what you find in your garden or local park, combined with some items from your home or a secondhand shop. Measuring 15cm x 23cm, it’s the perfect size for little hands and fits well into a kids backpack.
How did you go about getting it off the ground?
Publishing a book was a daunting task, so I sought the help of others by running a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money to print the first run of books. We reached our target with a few days to spare and sold about 900 books in the process. I’m so grateful to those early supporters for helping to get it published!
What’s next for Wild imagination?
We’re taking a break from running our own school holiday programs for the foreseeable future, but instead we’re partnering with councils, schools and events to bring nature play to Adelaide kids. You’ll find us doing nature play activities and selling the book at various events around Adelaide (check our website for dates). Next year I’ll begin working on the second book, which has more nature play activities for primary school aged kids. Longer term, there will be more books for different ages and interests, including for tweens and adults.
