Are you a doodler?

The dictionary defines doodle as:
verb- scribble absentmindedly
noun- a rough drawing made absentmindedly

Do you find yourself scribbling absentmindedly on the agenda during a meeting at work? Do you feel guilty doodling on the edges of the bulletin during the sermon? Did your teacher accuse you of not paying attention when you were doodling around the notes you took during a lecture? Well, turns out you are doing something good for your brain! A study done in 2009 showed that the doodlers retained 29% more information than the non-doodlers. That’s good news for those who love to doodle and for those who don’t, maybe you should start.

Today, we are going to give you some encouragement to doodle with words. The inspiration came from the children’s TV program called Word World. The body’s of the characters in the program are made of the letters of what they are (dog, pig, sheep, etc.) They work on building words with new letters that end up in the shape of that new word. If you have not seen it, watch:

I made a list of “summer” words, and then chose three of them to make word doodles. Here’s what I chose:

Now pull out your pen or pencil and paper. Choose some words from my list, or make your own list and START DOODLING!

Summer Words:
beach
summer
walk
flowers
garden
water drop
rest
relax
play
flip flop
tourist
pool
waves
splash
boat
picnic

If you still think doodling is a waste of time, just remember that a whole division at Google is dedicated to creating doodles. People do that for a job! They even have an annual contest for kids grades K-12 to create a doodle for their homepage. The winner receives a $30,000 scholarship and the child’s school also receives a huge technology grant. So if you have kids, get them doodling with you. Not only will it help them retain information better, they could potentially win a scholarship for college.

Have fun doodling!