Mud Kitchen

Pretend play helps children develop creativity, literacy and problem-solving skills.

Bring It Home

• Encourage children to play outdoors and use nature to guide their play.

• Encourage pretend play - pretend as if one object is really something else (i.e. you are making soup, a stick is a spoon, and all the rocks are different vegetables).

• Support your child’s play by providing play props that enhance their pretend scenarios, i.e. a pad of paper can be used to write a ticket by a police officer or an order by a waiter or waitress.

• Encourage pretend play by allowing your child to take on different “roles” such as a fire fighter, dancer, carpenter etc.

• Offer your child open ended play props such as a blanket, pieces of wood, empty food containers, balls and blocks.

• Consider allowing the recently created fort in your living room to stay up for a day or two to allow children to deepen the story line of the script they have created.

• Read our blog Indulge in your Child's Passion for Pretending

Last updated September 14, 2017