“There is a Super Hero in all of us. We just need the courage to put on the cape.” - Superman.
It is hard to imagine a childhood without being enthralled into the world of Super Heroes. I still have vivid memories of watching He-Man on Sunday mornings and being carried into an imaginary world. However I had been avoiding introducing Super Heroes to Sid and Nidhi since I believe that children below six years old need a strong grasp of reality, to understand a world of fantasy. Maria Montessori said, "by introducing concepts and images that had no basis in true reality the child could be misled into illusions and these illusions had nothing to ground them. Instead of extending understanding and learning possibilities fantasies could inhibit the child's natural development.”Every time we come across a movie we talk about it being real or not. Slowly they are able to distinguish fantasy from reality.
During the Summer reading program at the library, children’s section was overflowing with Super Heroes. Sid and Nidhi started immersing themselves in these books. And watching Spiderman Homecoming movie on a movie night was just enough to turn this interest into an obsession.
I know this is very common and I have discussed about this interest in kids with my friends and family. Each have addressed the obsession differently. Most by buying kids costumes and props to pretend play, some buy figurines and legos of their favorite Heroes, some read more books and watch more movies.
Here at our house, it took the most common route - pretend play. I didn’t buy any props to support their imagination. They came up with their own Super Hero characters and made their own costumes and props out of paper.
Sid pretended he had eyes that will shoot out fire at the villains and Nidhi’s super power is to freeze the villains by shooting out ice cubes from her wrist on pressing a button.
Both also came up with their robotic side kicks BB5 and BB9.
They put on show for me wearing their paper costumes. They had to come up with characters,stories, dialogues and theme music which required lot of collaboration. They also came up with reasoning for their costume choices. “I need a cape because I have to fly.”- Sid. “I don’t need a mask because I don’t want to hide who I am.” - Nidhi.
When their paper costumes couldn’t withstand the repeated usage, Sid and Nidhi’s attention turned towards just storytelling. They wanted to make comic books. This presented a challenge. They didn’t know how to draw super heroes in different postures. “I want to draw Super Man looking like running towards me.”, “ I need help to draw my Superhero flying.”- Sid. I presented them with my grandfather’s published book on “How to draw cartoons”. They learnt to draw people figures in easy steps and made lots of comic strip stories.
Their interest again turned towards acting out their comic strips. I suggested they try something different and they chose to make puppet shows. (They love making puppets and putting on shows.) They brainstormed and decided to make finger puppets. We watched YouTube videos about how to make finger puppets. I provided them with felt sheets. They tried to glue them together to make their puppets but the glue wouldn’t stick. They were determined to make their puppets, so they learned to sew them. I never anticipated that a drive to make puppets would lead to learning a life skill.
With Batman, FreezerGirl and sidekicks ready they set up puppet theatre using magma tiles and hand drawn backgrounds. They measured to cut out felt curtains and the shows began.
One day I found them making Super Heroes out of modeling clay. They faced a problem. The heads and limbs of their sculptures didn’t stick together and kept popping off.
Their frustration eventually lead to a question - “How to build a 3D sculpture using modeling clay?” We consulted a couple of YouTube videos and found that puppeteers use armature made of wires as skeleton. The kids improvised with pipe cleaners in place of wires.
They soon learnt that building too heavy sculptures will have balance issues.
Their interest in Super Heroes is still ongoing. Sid has been churning out drawings of different Super Heroes almost everyday. This is now our theme for handmade birthday cards for our family members.
What is my key take away from this? Let me answer in the wisdom words of John Holt
“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions -- if they have any -- and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”
