Creative Play

There are a lot of ways for you to encourage pretend play in your child!  Do you have any old bridesmaid dresses or old clothes from grandma?  Take them out for great dress-up opportunities for both girls AND boys.  Save those big boxes from moving or save and clean empty food containers because they are fabulous options for your child to increase imagination, creativity and social developmentKeep in mind that when playing with your child, let her lead the interactions and decision-making.

Although play-based learning is usually initiated by a child, you can expose your child to various toys and manipulatives to help spark creativity.  Animal or people figurines, blocks or small carscan be added to a play sceneto build a city, a park, a farm or zoo.

Baby dolls and play food, dinnerware, silverware, and cups are ideal toys for playing house.  If your child enjoys this kind of pretend play, be sure to engage her by sitting down and eating with the baby or perhaps you can help prepare the “food” for a tea party!Always encourage and use a lot of language while you play together as such interaction will enhance vocabulary and cognitive skills.

What else can you add to the play space that can spark creative play moments? Perhaps your old computer or office equipment. Do you have an old laptop or keyboard your child can use to pretend to “work” on?  Small suitcases can be incorporated into play time where discussion of travel, vacation and other parts of the world can be discussed.  The possibilities are endless.

Creative play experiences give children meaningful opportunities to learn more skills than any other program or technology.  Since it is the child who is initiating the imagination, you never know what direction she may want to go in, so stock the play space with various toys and objects that can lead a child to explore, imagine and play in any direction she chooses!