Creativity, Community, and Storytelling
Pairing Mythos and Maps with Hearts and Harvests
If your learner loves creating worlds, telling stories, and exploring how people and places connect, these two projects make a perfect pair.
Both Mythos and Maps and Hearts and Harvests invite learners to imagine new worlds — but from different angles.
In Mythos and Maps, they become storytellers and cartographers, dreaming up lands filled with myth, magic, and meaning.
In Hearts and Harvests, they shift focus to the everyday systems that make a world thrive — designing sustainable communities that balance creativity, care, and celebration.
Together, they offer two ways to explore how worlds are built — one through imagination, the other through empathy and connection.
Mythos and Maps: Where Imagination Begins
In Mythos and Maps, learners step into the role of worldbuilders — sketching maps, shaping landscapes, and inventing the myths that explain their world’s origins.
Each week builds a richer sense of place and story: how geography influences culture, how symbols carry meaning, and how stories connect people to land. The project blends geography, creative writing, and art to nurture both creativity and critical thinking.
Big Question: What kind of world could I create?
Hearts and Harvests: Where Worlds Come to Life
Inspired by games like Stardew Valley, Hearts and Harvests explores what it takes to design a thriving, sustainable community.
Learners imagine a valley of their own — thinking about how people live, work, and celebrate together across the seasons.
While the project often has a real-world feel — drawing on ecology, wellbeing, and community life — learners can easily take it into fantasy territory if they wish, blending imagination with environmental understanding.
Their final creation, the Valley Almanac, becomes a record of their community’s values, festivals, and stories — a celebration of connection between people and place.
Big Question: How can we design a community that flourishes?
Why They Work Beautifully Together
Parallel worldbuilding:
Each project builds its own world — one steeped in myth and imagination, the other grounded in sustainable living. Learners explore both the symbolic and the practical sides of world creation.
Creative process with purpose:
Both projects use art, writing, and design to express ideas — encouraging learners to think deeply about meaning, balance, and belonging.
Interdisciplinary connection:
Together, they weave English, Geography, Science, Art, Maths, and Humanities — offering rich, integrated learning that feels cohesive and creative.
Maths in meaningful ways:
While neither project has a heavy maths focus, both include authentic opportunities to apply numeracy — through mapping, measurement, data, and spatial reasoning. It can be reassuring to know that creative projects can still tick key maths outcomes naturally, without the need for worksheets or drills.
Grounded and imaginative balance:
Mythos and Maps invites learners to stretch their imagination sky-high; Hearts and Harvests plants those ideas back into the soil — showing how creativity and care go hand in hand.
Project Pair Highlights
Ideal for learners who love storytelling, systems, and design
Perfect as a term-by-term pair — one world imagined, one world designed
Builds a portfolio filled with creativity and reflection — maps, myths, and a beautifully crafted Valley Almanac
Encourages independence, problem-solving, and emotional connection to their creations
Two Worlds, Endless Imagination
Whether your learner wants to chart new continents or grow a valley that thrives with life, this pairing celebrates the full spectrum of creativity — from mythic stories to meaningful communities.
