May’s projectsMay 26, 2016

We’ve discovered imaginative play and it’s changing the way we work with toys. It’s a stage of play that really distinguishes the toddler, representational and symbolic thinking begins to develop and there is a great need to imitate. With the days already getting hotter and my first sunburn of the year out of the way I’ve got back the home-maker bug and cracked out the dusty sewing machine to help this stage really flourish.

Firstly we’ve begun adding labels. Thanks to double sided tape and a colour printer big bold labels show Adam what’s inside a box before he dives in. Initially this was done in the hope of starting toy rotation… then I realised we don’t have enough storage, play-space, or toys to do this effectively – And I’m the first to admit Adam is not short on toys!

Toy Rotation: a method of rotating toys so the child becomes less bored, mostly advocated by parents who have huge basements for storage, dedicated playrooms or more toys than I ever owned in a lifetime?

However, boxes vaguely contain the mess, as well as making tidying up and selectively hiding much easier. While some are merely containers, others act as activity prompts – by clearing the floor of all but the box it invites Adam to delve inside.

The big project was to give Adam some role play space. While looking for play-space ideas I encountered the chair slip-covers that had been sewn into kitchens. These really suit our 2 room house set-up and replacing a couple of seams with zips allows me to fold every side flat.

Materials: white fabric, silver fabric (hobs), patterned fabric (back), t-shirt transfer paper (oven + shelves), thin card (hobs), acetate sheet (oven door), velcro (oven door), sticky back felt (dials), 2 zips, ribbon for back ties and an old oven glove.

Unable to find the bigger sized play pots and pans we bought or borrowed small versions that can get added to the kitchen cupboard (if they aren’t wrecked). There are quite a few measurements I got wrong, and bit’s I’d have done differently, but for a first try I’m rather happy. Adam has been having fun playing with it and loves eating his snack out of his saucepans.

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