Posts Tagged ‘imaginative play’
After watching an episode of Olivia where she turns her house into a hotel for her friends, we were inspired to make our own home a hotel for the evening. Sammi was very excited about this project. She was convinced we were going to go so far as to have the pool that is her favorite part of staying at a hotel. We compromised with a bubble bath after dinner!
We decided to call our hotel Solar System Hotel. Sammi came up with this all on her own. The girls have been in love with Bubble Guppies since it aired in January and they are particularly fond of the space episode. I was thrilled since I happened to have the perfect craft and book to go along with our theme.
We decorated our welcome table where we had all our blankets, pillows and towels waiting for us when we checked in. (Bummed I forgot to take the picture before we checked in. The table looked great piled with all our stuff!) We also decorated the light fixture above the dining table. These crafts came in a set from Oriental Trading Company that I bought about a year ago. I can’t find them online anymore, but they have other great space crafts and resources.
The sign for our hotel hung on the girls craft table. We decorated it using the cover of Eight Spinning Planets as our inspiration. They sat there and checked us in. Sammi’s job was to write down our names and assign us each a room. Elli’s job was to hand us a piece of chocolate and our room key (actual card keys from the Hyatt) and then show us to our room. Sammi also checked off when we had received our bedding.
For dinner we had pizzas made on corn tortillas. The shape and cheese reminded me of the moon. We were out of pepperoni so we used olives for craters. The girls really love their olives! So does their dad who insists they put the olives on their fingers and then eat them!
We had so much fun with this impromptu activity. We reviewed what we knew about planets, comets and the moon. We colored, glued, and taped. Sammi practiced her writing skills. Elli got to be the leader (a rare treat for her!) and we all had lots of laughs.
Today we are linking up with ABC and 123 for their Show and Tell!
If you haven’t yet, please check out the Baby Leg Warmers giveaway going on until March 1o.
…time and space for free play.
I’m continuing my series on ways I would love to make a difference in the world. In previous posts I suggested an indoor play area not part of a fast food restaurant in every community and a bookshelf full of age appropriate books for every home. I’ve been thinking a lot about play as a necessary part of child development. I recently began reading Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen. He names three reason child desperately need play in their lives:
- To Connect, or Reconnect after connection has been severed
- To Build Confidence by role playing and practicing new skills in a safe environment
- To Heal from Emotional Distress by recreating the situation with different roles and outcomes
These are compelling reasons why children need generous amounts of free time to play, create, connect, imagine and discover the world around them and their position in that world. I see such potential in my little ones and I want more than anything to provide every opportunity to foster that potential. But my biggest fear is over-scheduling them in sports, lessons, service opportunities and any other good thing that may arise. Cohen goes on to explain that this need for play is not an early childhood phenomenon. That childhood is made up of this need to play and it stretches long past toddlerhood.
It’s not just important that children play, but that they have playmates. This could be siblings, friends and even, maybe most importantly, parents. When we use play as an opportunity to connect with our children we can learn something about them and their experiences that we would never be able to draw out of them through conversation alone. When we use play to build confidence in our children they are learning in a most powerful way the strength of their character and determination to master a skill. When we use play to help them heal from emotional distress we skip over the discipline, yelling, correcting that we somehow come to rely on and jump instead straight to the heart of the matter and bring our little ones back to the joy of life they so often display.
For these reasons, and many more, I want every child to have the time and space to play.
What do you want for every child?
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On those crazy days where it’s blizzarding, thundering or just plain blustery, it’s necessary to have an energetic outlet for little ones. Music seems to be the number one solution I hear from parents to help their kids get the wiggles out. A close second for me is playing dress up.
I love dress up because it appeals to boys and girls equally. We’ve had so many boys over to play and they love getting into the clown outfits that were handed down to us from Brent’s childhood. They even like to accessorize with capes, boots and hats. Sammi loves these outfits just as much. In fact, we ended up at storytime at the library one day with her in one of the clown outfits. She was so insistent and I just didn’t have the heart to say no! Here’s a fun video of Sammi and a friend dressing up as clown super heroes. Just too cute!
They sure expended a lot of energy together and were more than ready for bedtime! The cape Sammi is wearing in that video has recently become her Snow White cloak. Sometimes the red cape Jack is wearing becomes a Little Red Riding Hood cape. I love how versatile the cape is in a dress up box. It’s a foundational piece, in my opinion, and belongs in every dress up box! It’s also super easy to make.
How to Make a Dress-Up Cape
- Cut one square of fabric 45 in x 25 in. Cut another strip of fabric of the same or contrasting fabric 45 in x 4 in.
- Hem the sides and bottom of the square piece of fabric.
- Using your sewing machine’s longest stitch setting, sew a running stitch across the (unhemmed) top of the square. You can sew a second line a little farther in the give the gather some stability.
- Mark the center with a safety pin. Gather the square using the running stitches you just sewed. Gather until the fabric measures 12 in across (6 in on each side of the safety pin.)
- Take the strip of fabric. Fold it in half lengthwise and press it. Then open flat. Fold the top half over to the crease (so it’s in fourths) and press the fold. Do the same for the bottom half. Then fold it all together so it’s like bias tape, which is basically how we’re using it. It should be 1 in tall now. Mark the center.
- Slide the gathered end of the square between the two sides of the strip, matching up the two center markers. Pin it securely in place making sure the top of the square goes all the way into the center fold of the strip. Then secure the rest of the square inside the strip with pins. Continue pinning the strip until you get to the ends. Turn the edges inside so that when you sew it there will be only smooth hems.
- Now it’s time to sew! Start at one end of the strip and sew down the short side and along until you get to the square. Continue sewing the square and the strip together making sure that the front and back of the strip are sewn together. Then finish sewing the remainder of the strip and the other end.
- Now you have a finished cape with the strings to tie it on!
Sammi loved being a part of the process when I made this blue cape. From the second I started cutting the fabric she kept asking if she could wear it yet. Unfortunately for her, this cape is a gift. Fortunately for you, it’s a gift for one lucky entrant in the Winter Wonderland! I’ve also added a few surprises that are must-haves for any dress-up box. To enter, make sure you’ve left a comment on the Join the Winter Wonderland post. For additional entries, you can comment on this post, become a fan of Because Babies Grow Up on Facebook or Stumble any post in the Winter Wonderland Carnival (From January 18-January 31, 2010)
What are your favorite dress-up moments with your little ones?
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Sammi is in the throes of pretend play. She loves to imagine we are riding her tricycle to California, or that we are going grocery shopping, or, her all-time favorite, that she is changing baby diapers (for hours on end!)
Today is kicking off a short series on pretend play. I’m positive we will have more weeks focused entirely on pretend play, so this is just the beginning.
Pretend play takes a lot of imagination. We can encourage that imagination by offering some physical items to spark our children’s creativity. We have a dress-up box. It started out as a few items randomly scattered throughout Sammi’s toys. One day I decided to formalize the dress-up box. As I wandered around gathering items I was surprised by how much we actually had. I was so excited to put it all in one place and introduce Sammi to it. She was about 18 months when I first played dress-up with her. She loved the hats but wasn’t really interested in the rest. Every week or so I’d pull it out and introduce her to something new. It took a while, but one day I opened the lid and she went to town! She didn’t wait for me to pull anything out. She dove right in and brought items to me to put on her.
Here are some suggestions for a Dress Up Box:
Something interesting I learned about pretend play is that there are two styles of pretend play: patterners and dramatists. Patterners pay more attention to the properties of objects, shape and form. Dramatists are more focused on storytelling, imagination and social interactions. When given the exact set of objects and told to group like objects together, patterners will put people together, animals together and blocks together. Dramatists, on the other hand, will group ones together that make a story.
Both styles are pretend play and a natural part of the way children discover the world around them. Sammi is definitely a dramatist! She is a storyteller extraordinaire. It is so fun to see her sit all her babies down and read them a book and have them sing songs with her. What style of pretend play do you have at your house?
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