Imaginative Play | learning 4 kids

Planting a Garden

Posted by Janice on December 20, 2012 1 Comment

Imaginative play would have to be one of my most favourite kinds of play. I love how children can freely explore an imaginary world and benefit so much from it.

We have been spending a fair bit of time in our garden with the beautiful warm summery weather. As a follow on activity to our Spring Play Dough and to re-enact our time spent in the garden I thought I would set up this invitation to play imaginatively, Planting a Garden.

My girls spent hours planting, re-planting, weeding, sprinkling seeds and watering their imaginative play garden.

You can find out more about what imaginative play is and how to encourage it with kids by following the link: What is Imaginative Play and How to Encourage it?

What you will need?

We have re-used our Fake Flowers from our Create a Scented Spring Play Dough Garden Activity and the Styrofoam is recycled from a cardboard box from a parcel we received.

To create an imaginative play garden, you press the firm wire stems from the fake flowers into the Styrofoam. Miss 2 had no trouble pressing them into the Styrofoam but if this is of a concern, you can always pre-make some holes for your child to place the flower stems into.

This activity is such a wonderful way to also practice those fine motor skills!

For older kids, such as my Miss 5 and 6, they created flower garden patterns, alternating certain flowers to create patterns of colours and flower types.

Miss 2 pretending to water her garden that she created with the Styrofoam and fake flowers. She was also making swishing sounds to go with the watering, priceless!

The magic of imaginative play….. Miss 2 sprinkling her garden with flower seeds from a small container and Miss 5 watering them into the ground.

Learning Benefits of Imaginative Play:

It provides opportunities for children to identify with the adult world. Practise and role play their understanding and interpretation.
Develop social skills: practising negotiation skills, turn taking and sharing. Provides opportunities for working out problems and experimenting with solutions.
Emotional development: Understanding and expressing their feelings through the re-enactment of certain experiences. Taking on roles that encourage discipline and empathy.
Encourages imagination: Children can be anyone and do anything in the pretend world.
Develop language skills: practising listening, looking and talking. Being spoken to and talking with other people, also developing an understanding of what is being communicated through body language such as smiles and nodding.
I also believe that imaginative play is a great way for children to relax and unwind from their busy lives.

More Imaginative Play:

We’re Going on a ‘Teddy’ Bear Hunt

Posted by Janice on October 9, 2012 13 Comments

We’re going on a ‘Teddy’ bear hunt…….I’m not scared!

We have a gorgeous book which comes with a CD that tells the story of the adventure of going on a bear hunt. My kids have played this CD over many times as I watch them pretend to walk through long, wavy grass and run away from a bear. So I thought I would bring this story to life some more by creating the different scenes in the book.

Playing with songs and books help prepare children for future learning and teach them beginning pre-reading skills. Re-enacting we’re going on a bear hunt is a fun activity we can do with our kids to help promote this learning through play.

The Book:

‘Bear Hunt’ comes with a CD which is read by Noni Hazelhurst with Benita Collings, Alister Smart and George Spartels who are from ABC4Kid’s television show Play School. Illustrated by Patricia Mullins. Published by The Five Mile Press Pty Ltd

There is another version of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ written by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.

activity ideas for we're going on a bear hunt

Uh-oh. (Uh-oh)

Grass. (Grass)

Long wavy grass. (Long wavy grass).

We can’t go over it. (We can’t go over it).

We can’t go under it. (We can’t go under it.)

We’ll have to go through it!

Swish, swish, swish, swish!

To make our “Long Wavy Grass” we opened up a box so that both ends were open like a tunnel. When the box is open like this, it can become unstable so we strengthened it with masking tape. We also placed a large pillow on either side of the box to help hold it up firm for when the kids would crawl through it. We then sticky taped green streamers down over the two openings of the box. We also placed our green mat inside the box but you could alternatively use a green towel or blanket.

activities with books for kids and toddlers

Uh-oh. (Uh-oh)

Mud. (MUd)

Thick oozy mud. (Thick oozy mud).

We can’t go over it. (We can’t go over it).

We can’t go under it. (We can’t go under it.)

We’ll have to go through it!

Squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch!

To make our thick oozy mud, we simply placed a number of cushions and pillows on the floor and laid a brown blanket on top imitating the thick oozy mud.

Uh-oh. (Uh-oh)

A cave. (A cave)

A dark gloomy cave. (A dark gloomy cave).

We can’t go over it. (We can’t go over it).

We can’t go under it. (We can’t go under it.)

We’ll have to go through it!

Tiptoes, tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe!

To create our cave, we a placed a brown fitted sheet over our dining chairs which were arranged in the shape of a cave. I used a fitted sheet because I find this clings better to the dining chairs and is less likely to slide off.

Learning Experiences:

Encourages and promotes imaginative play and creativity.
Getting little bodies moving through dance and rhythm.
Develop and extend vocabulary.
Rhyme – understanding rhyme in our spoken language helps children learn to read.
Rhythm- helps children to remember words and develop auditory memory skills.
Phonemic awareness – hearing and understanding that words are made up of individual sounds and other word patterns.

Other Teddy Bear Activities on Learning4kids:

Teddy Bears Everywhere

Filed Under: Activities with Books, Music Play | Tagged: Tagged With: Activities with Books, Imaginative play

Rainy Day Activity – Indoor Camping

Posted by Janice on June 14, 2012 5 Comments

It’s raining, it’s pouring…..and we have been stuck inside a fair bit lately with the weather.

To entertain the kids and give them something to do we set up an indoor camping trip to beat the boredom and promote imaginative play.

Here are a few ideas for setting up your own Indoor Campsite.

Firstly we set up a tent with sleeping bags, pillows and a torch. Then we set out some camping chairs, esky filled with pretend food, cooking utensils and crockery such as tongs and cooking pots and pans. On the wall we placed some photos of other camp sites that we printed off the internet, this was great to give my kids some ideas on setting up their own campsite.

Every indoor camp site needs a pretend fire and we made ours using a small cane basket filled with red cellophane, paper towel rolls and twigs. My kids placed their camp torch underneath the red cellophane to make it look like red flames were glowing.

Cooking on our pretend campfire: I love how Miss 6 is making toast using tongs over the pretend fire. Check out Miss 23 months camping in luxury with her fluffy slippers, haha!

Whenever we go camping the marshmallows are always on top of our list of things to bring, so we had to have them a part of our indoor camping experience. Adding to the fun of play, we put marshmallows onto the end of some twigs and my girls pretended to cook them over the campfire. We later cooked them on the gas stove – yummo!

Learning benefits of imaginative play – Indoor Camping Trip

It provides opportunities for children to identify with the adult world. Practise and role play their understanding and interpretation.
Develop social skills: practising negotiation skills, turn taking and sharing. Provides opportunities for working out problems and experimenting with solutions.
Emotional development: Understanding and expressing their feelings through the re-enactment of certain experiences. Taking on roles that encourage discipline and empathy.
Encourages imagination: Children can be anyone and do anything in the pretend world.
Develop language skills: practising listening, looking and talking. Being spoken to and talking with other people, also developing an understanding of what is being communicated through body language such as smiles and nodding.
I also believe that imaginative play is a great way for children to escape, relax and unwind from their busy lives.

What would you include in your Indoor Campsite?

Filed Under: Imaginative Play | Tagged: Tagged With: Imaginative play, Rainy Day Activities

Imaginative Play Vet Hospital

Posted by Janice on April 15, 2012 2 Comments

Imaginative play would have to be one of my most favourite kinds of play. I love how children can freely explore an imaginary world and benefit so much from it. I cherish their imaginations and the gorgeous stories they come up with.

Today I am sharing with you our imaginative play Vet Hospital and some simple ideas for setting one up in your home to encourage this play.

You can find out more about what imaginative play is and how to encourage it with kids by following the link – What is Imaginative Play and How to Encourage it?

Involve the kids in setting up an area for their imaginative play; I always find that they have the best ideas on how it should be done. It is a great way of bouncing ideas off one another to create new ones! Kids also don’t mind if they use something to imitate something else such as if you do not have a toy phone, a brush for a pretend phone will do.

Some other ideas on setting up a Vet Hospital; my kids emptied their toy shelves and used each cube as a sick bed/bay for their stuffed toy animals with a small blanket or pillow and bowl of water. We even had a fish tank (plastic tub) with sick fish and a turtle in it. We also included our toy kitchen as a medicine bench (as the kids called it) which had pretend pet food, doctor’s props such as stethoscope, toy syringes and blood pressure pump.

Every Vet Hospital needs an examination table which has been set up using a cardboard box with a blanket thrown over the top and a small computer for the assistant to enter information about the sick patient. My girls had seen this once before when we took our own pet to the vet.

Kids love to pretend and the imaginative play ideas are endless with a Vet Hospital – here is Miss 5 giving pretend medicine to the sick dog and also feeding the sick animals.

Play along and bring your very own pretend sick pet to your child’s Vet Hospital – they will love it!

The learning benefits of imaginative play:

It provides opportunities for children to identify with the adult world. Practise and role play their understanding and interpretation.
Develop social skills: practising negotiation skills, turn taking and sharing. Provides opportunities for working out problems and experimenting with solutions.
Emotional development: Understanding and expressing their feelings through the re-enactment of certain experiences. Taking on roles that encourage discipline and empathy.
Encourages imagination: Children can be anyone and do anything in the pretend world.
Develop language skills: practising listening, looking and talking. Being spoken to and talking with other people, also developing an understanding of what is being communicated through body language such as smiles and nodding.
I also believe that imaginative play is a great way for children to escape, relax and unwind from their busy lives.

Filed Under: Imaginative Play | Tagged: Tagged With: Imaginative play

10 Mini Cupcakes in a Bakers Shop……

Posted by Janice on October 5, 2011 3 Comments

…..round and fat with a cherry on the top!

This is one of my favourite children’s songs, known as 10 Current Buns; I have altered the words Current Buns to Mini Cupcakes to fit in with our Mini cupcake props.

These mini cupcakes were made previously and they are great for an imaginative play prop. We incorporated the song 10 Mini Cupcakes and role played the actions on cue with the words.

Kids love to take on different roles, dress up and pretend in an imaginary world. So much fun!

Taking on the different roles and dressing up as little bakers and customers. Using imaginative play props such as an apron, chef’s hat, tongs for lifting the cupcakes, a handbag for the customer, cash register and bottles tops for pretend coins.

10 mini cupcakes in a baker’s shop

Round and fat with a cherry on the top

Along comes Miss 5 (your child’s name) with a dollar one day

Bought a mini cupcake and took it away.

Miss 3 counting how many are left after taking 1 away?

Bakers Shop is a wonderful imaginative play opportunity to promote:

Mathematic concepts and problem solving: understanding subtraction and how many is left.
Social skills: taking in turns, sharing and negotiation.
Language skills: practising listening, looking and talking.