Your child takes one look at the materials available to her, and decides to create her own activity. Bonus: This one in particular kept her occupied for a good 30 minutes while I prepared breakfast. “What exactly did she do?” you may ask. She took the tiny colored clothes pins and matched them to the colors of her favorite Paw Patrol friends. Clipping them on became a fine…
Some blessed soul who must have understood B’s deep love for animals got her a vet kit for her 2nd birthday. A year and a half later, she still plays with it multiple times a week. What I love most about open-ended toys are the possibilities they open up for language development and dramatic play. My 3-year-old uses words like x-ray and CT scan, cast…
Give a child a brown paper bag, some markers, and a small paper bear 🐻 to decorate, and watch the dramatic play begin. Want to spruce it up? Add some sticks and leaves 🍃 collected from the outdoors. And of you want things committed to memory and concepts more fully understood (such as hibernation), pair these activities with a story, like Bear Has a Story to Tell by Phillip C. Stead (pictured…
I don’t know about you all, but shortly after I wake up each day, I either have a tiny child staring at me or one of her toys “talking” to me, begging me to wake up and speak back. You may think I’m kidding, but this has been our life for about the past year. Bianca has learned to change her voice when one of her toys is…