Imaginative Play
Effective imaginative play gives children the opportunity to try out risky ideas in a safe environment. It allows them to explore boundaries, make sense of the world and develop their own identities. Through pretend play, children are learning to understand the basic principles of society and how it functions, and the important rules and routines of everyday life. Imaginative play is vital because it allows children to revisit familiar and unfamiliar events, whilst also supporting the development of their imagination, through real and familiar, to complete fantasy.
Imaginative play gives children the opportunity to:
Develop confidence and self-esteem
Show initiative
Express their personality
Develop communication and language skills
Cultivate friendships
Investigate real life situations
Learn cooperation and develop teamwork skills
Use their imagination
Express themselves freely
Develop decision making skills
Stages of Development in Early Years Imaginative Play
As with all areas of provision, we need to understand any patterns of child development that are likely to show themselves through children’s play and make sure that we have provision in place to support them.
From 18 to 24 months, children will be engaged in simple pretend play. Everyday activities, such as talking on the phone or using keys, will begin to be acted out. By the age of two, children will often show signs of symbolic thinking, for example, pushing a block of wood around the floor as a car.
Between the ages of two and three, children’s symbolic thinking will become more complex, and they will engage in pretend play of familiar and unfamiliar events. Toys will play their part but younger toddlers need pretend objects to closely resemble the real item whereas older children don’t need the similarity and can create imaginary objects to support their play.
By the age of three, skills are more developed and children are fully immersed in familiar role play scenarios. Now is the time for afternoon tea parties, visiting the doctors and going to the shops.
Between four and five, role play is at its peak. Scenarios are more complex and play is more elaborate. Children can create scenarios with others, where they all have a different role to play, be it fantasy or reality, and verbal communication is about planning their play as well as an important communication tool. At this stage, children are beginning to collaborate and role play becomes personally, rather than object orientated.
To ‘role play’ anything, a child needs to know it well or be able to imagine it. An imaginative play space has to allow children to revisit the familiar, follow their interests and expand their imaginations. Role play areas are an integral part of our rooms here at First Steps Nursery. We aim to provide a varied range of props and materials when creating a familiar, real home setting. The team also work hard to create areas based on children’s current interests, this could be anything from a builders site to a hair dressers.
At home it is always possible to create imaginative play spaces using real resources, getting the pots and pans out the cupboard and giving your child a wooden spoon can create a cooking role play scenario. Using a cardboard box to make a boat, it does not have to be costly but the most important thing is allowing your child to use their imagination. Children love to play with their parents. When your child brings you a pretend cup of tea, play along and ask for a tea spoon of sugar. Ring them up on their pretend phone asking to put in an order for a pizza for delivery. By showing an interest in what they are doing this helps to develop the story and encourage the imagination but let your child be in charge and take the lead to encourage the imagination to soar.
