27 January 2009

Operation Play Time - Pretend Play

It's Operation Playtime again an today's focus is Pretend Play. Pretend play is an important part of creative development.

Today we played with puppets acting out the traditional tales but also being imaginative making up other stories and adventures for the characters. Later, I found some of them 'living' in a lego house so I think they'd been used as 'play people' too.

Another favourite activity is having a teddy bears picnic, this has multiple learning oportunities. First we get out a blanket and the box of pretend food / tea-set. The teddies are set up round the edge and then we need to share out the tea-set - this can be an exercise in learning colours, matching, counting and sharing. Then we share out the food - labelling foods, talking about meals / healthy foods etc. All learning whilst having fun and no realising it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The boys love puppets. We should get them out again. Would you recommend ones that go with a story like 3 little bears and Goldilocks or just other random puppets?

Elaine said...

We've got a mixture, story sets, random character glove and finger puppets (often they come free with the children's magazines!) and other ones we've acquired from various sources!