Imaginary Friends

I've read that the concept for, Stephan Spielberg's E.T. The Extra Terrestrial came from an imaginary friend he created after is parents divorced. E.T. was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I still remember our Aunt taking my sister and I to the theater to see it. We cried our eyes out when we thought E.T was dying, we cheered when he went home. I wanted to be Elliot. My sister was mischievous like, Gertie. How cool would it be to have a real life Alien as a friend? That movie fueled my love for Outer Space,  Reeses Pieces and my Speak and Spell.

My sister and I

My little sister had an imaginary friend named Sarah. Sarah scared the crap out of me.  My sister was pretty adamant that Sarah was with us all the time. She had things to say, which honestly was the stuff of my nightmares. Our parents divorced when we were very little. Maybe the imaginary lands we created and imaginary friends we had were a product of that to an extent. Maybe it was because it was a simpler time when there wasn't 24/7 T.V. , IPads, internet, smart phones, etc...

When I was growing up we had one TV, so you watched whatever your parents watched. Cartoons were only on Saturday mornings and if you really wanted to watch something exciting on Sundays you flipped on PBS to watch that guy with the big hair paint trees. You had to use your imagination. Imagination is something I thing kids lack today. They don't know how to make up a story, play pretend, or talk to an imaginary friend who (hopefully) isn't really there. Too often today we pull out the tablet so our kids can make a picture instead of the watercolors or crayons.

That is what I love about having Mother Goose Time. We use our imaginations everyday. They are so happy when they are creating. It's a lot messier than the pulling out the Ipad, but it's also so much more rewarding.

We had a heated discussion about whether or not we like Aliens. We decided we like, Power Rangers and Aliens. Aliens are a little scarier than Power Rangers.  Most likely an Alien would have at least 3 eyes and green skin they would say," bop, bop, bop, I am an Alien". They would fly here on their space ship.

We painted 2 paper plates and a small cup with silver/grey paint. We decorated our space ships with jewels and other shiny objects. We glued the cup to the top of one plate and attached the plated together to make our space ship. We loved flying them around pretending to be from outer space.

We learned that Earth is special because it is the only known planet that has life. The Earth has its own path called an orbit, around the sun. The planets spin in their orbit so they don't hit each other.

We made Alien Headbands so we could pretend to be Aliens.

Did you know the temperature on Mercury ranges from 875F in the daytime to -300F at night. I go crazy when one day it's 70F and the next it's 45F. Could you imagine living on Mercury. No wonder why there is no known life there. What could survive in such extreme temperatures?

We painted Mercury Red and Blue to illustrate the extreme temperatures. We pretended to be on Mercury when it was very hot and when it was very cold. We played a game with our planets, when someone held up the red side it was very hot, the blue side very cold. We enjoyed pretending to melt more than anything.

I think I'm going to go call my sister and watch E.T. on my Ipad.