This week's post is by intern Rosie Shewnarain.  

Vicki Cobb started off week two with a fun-filled afternoon of science experiments! She had everyone bright-eyed and on the edge of their seats as she demonstrated experiments involving flying teabags and levitating tennis balls. Soon after, the kids of Imagination Academy went off to look for their own crazy experiments to do with inspiration from Vicki’s very own book We Dare You. After many failed and successful experiments the group sat down and had a chat with Ms. Cobb. She explained that scientists can be wrong or right, but that doesn’t matter as long as you learn something. She also shared the story of how she became a writer. She used to be a science teacher but instead of teaching from the textbooks, she did tons of research to try and make it fun and relatable for kids. She figured that if she can teach it, then she can write it. She’s an inspiring woman and the kids had a blast! (ed note: I loved her book Bet You Can't! when I was a kid!)

On Wednesday, Julie Salamon brought along her own experience as a writer. She wrote the book Cat in the City which was based off of an actual cat named Pretty Boy. Many of her characters were based off of real people; the cello player inspired by her son’s cello teacher, one of the characters is her own dog, and there is even a dog named after her daughter! People aren’t the only things that inspired her though. One of the scenes in her story was inspired by a snowstorm in Washington Square. After she shared her story, she gave the kids a writing exercise to do. “Your character appears out of nowhere in a strange place, what happens next?” They could choose to write poems, stories, or draw pictures. This brought on a poem about a food fight with jumping juices, partying potatoes, erupting eggplants, and tangerines that tangoed! Somehow this exercise escalated into a heated debate on what life would be like without death. Would gardens grow in our stomachs when we ate our vegetables?

We ended the week with Lauren Magaziner who made Thursday a day filled with inspiration. She is the author of The Only Thing Worse than Witches and had gotten many ideas from the people and places around her; inspiration can come from anywhere. We then played a game called "what if..." For example, what if there was a boy that never grew up or what if there was a spider that wrote on her web to save a pig’s life (sound familiar?). The young writers came up with a few of their own:

• What if dogs ruled the world?
• What if you had to share your room with an alien?

After this activity Lauren pulled out some story dice. These dice included setting, plot, and character dice which inspired wacky stories about queens being chased evil giraffes, dentists that could not stop hiccupping, and alien pilot messengers. Then the kids split up into threes and joined forces to create group stories. The stories were hilarious!

We can’t believe we’re already at the halfway point. Time flies when you’re having fun!