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Imaginative play is an important part of childhood. Children learn about life, roles and responsibilities by acting out the different experiences they have in their daily lives or something they find interesting. Imaginative play or role play is an important aspect of practicing their social skills by focusing on their senses to absorb the world around them. Set up a role play corner for your child to engage her imagination and help her learn practical life skills. Convert an old wardrobe into a space for imaginative play. Remove the shelving and add some toy storage in the form of boxes and baskets to open the doors to a world with dragons, princesses and castles. Canopies and play tents can be a great addition to a play corner. The play area should be changed regularly and the props and toys should be regularly updated and moved around to keep children stimulated. Toy storage like chests and baskets can be used as costume boxes. Play silks are a wonderful addition to costume boxes and can be easily “imagined” into tents, forts, castles, capes, etc. Large bed sheets and a few glittering tissues can be a great way to encourage children to come up with new play ideas. Drape a beautiful green play silk on a wooden console table to create a tree. A sheet thrown over a long table can be a tunnel for an explorer. Fabric scraps can be easily fashioned into finger puppets and used in projects where you need a small piece of felt, silk, netting, etc. Halloween costume accessories and borrowed pieces from friends can also be excellent additions to your dress-up box. Add your child’s name or initials to the toy storage to personalize it and encourage her to be whoever she wants to be. The imaginative play area can also be a reading space with puppets and props to make the stories come alive. Select books where there is imaginative play between the characters, or where the story may diverge to more than one possible outcome at a point. Complete-the-story books can be perfect for the role play area. Include comfy seating like bean bag chairs which can also double up as props. Bright red polka-dotted bean bag chairs can be a mushroom for a fairy to perch. Bean bag chairs are an excellent way for children to enjoy being in the outdoors as the bean bags can act as large makeshift tables for collecting nature’s treasures. Encourage your child’s imagination and develop her motor and linguistic skills with imaginative play using these simple ideas. Authors Profile: William Socket is a certified interior designer and runs his own interior decoration consultancy. William especially loves decorating a home in wooden furniture and believes that nothing gives a home as warm and cozy a touch as all-wood furniture and decor. William loves reading up on new design ideas, and has a special interest in space saving techniques. Here William writes about bean bag chairs and toy storage.
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