Here is the Fifth in a series of articles written by the multi-talented Elaine, an Occupational therapist from littlesheeplearning.co.uk. Elaine also writes a blog that has news from Littlesheep Learning and the wider world of education and learning. She is also featured in the free play-activities.com daily play activity emails.
Of all the areas of sensory play the sense of taste is probably the most neglected when it comes to exploration. Using mouths to explore is a natural part of a babies development which can be developed into different activity ideas for older children
To encourage experimentation with flavours let your child help you cook; research shows that children who help cook are more likely to try new dishes. Some fun easy cooking ideas are icing biscuits and cakes, making popcorn and muesli (mix up favourite cereals and dried fruit). Children will enjoy choosing their favourite pizza toppings, fruits to make smoothies, vegetables for a stir-fry or fillings for a jacket potato or sandwich.
Play taste games, gather up different foods with a variety of flavours cover the children’s eyes and let them taste the food. Discuss whether they like or dislike it, what it tastes like, is it sweet, sour, salty, fruity, spicy, hot or cold? Can they guess what it is or what it is made from? Similarly put different drinks, for example apple, orange, grapefruit, grape, cranberry, pineapple, tomato, milk and water in cups and see if your child can distinguish between them.
A craft idea to incorporate tasty play is to use hoop cereals or crisps to make necklaces to taste later. Older children could use a needle and thread to make chains of dried fruits or sweets.
Another idea to incorporate taste into play and learning is to use food as the medium. Small food items, for example raisins, cereal loops, and sweets are great to use as counters when practicing counting or doing arithmetic (and can be eaten as a reward at the end!). Edible alphabets, for example an “a” shaped out of apple, a “b” made from banana, a”c” made of crisps and a “d” made of donuts can help the understanding of phonics! Can you find tastes in a rainbow of colours?
Taste is probably the hardest sense to incorporate into play, however, with the inclusion of cooking activities the scope is limited only by your imagination!
Elaine Lambe
Educational consultant
Elaine trained as an Occupational Therapist before working with children with autism on home based early intervention programmes. Through her work in the home she helped parents to support their child’s learning, implemented behaviour plans and assisted with teaching self help skills for example toilet training, self-feeding and dressing. She has also had experience of supporting children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, adapting the curriculum to make it accessible to them. After the birth of her first child, Elaine started Littlesheep Learning – www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk – an online store with an ever-growing range of teaching and learning materials for everyone who wants to help their children reach their potential.
In Part I Stuck on pretend play, I received a letter from Melody that I continue with the answer here.
” “My 3 year son doesn’t really dress up or play role playing games. I really noticed it when his friend Claire came around to play last week. He loves to push his little car up and down for hours though or his train. He doesn’t interact or anything! Claire wanted to dress up and play but my son wasn’t really interested. Do you have any tips or activities for encouraging more role playing?
This is the second part of the pretend play series.
Starters- Ways in to encourage role playing games with your son
Although these suggestions were written with Melody’s son in mind they work equally well with girls as with everything it totally depends upon your child.
Taxi/bus – arrange 2 rows of 2 chairs. Hail a taxi and ask the driver to take you to wherever you want.
Doctor – 1 of you (or other kids) pretends to be ill and the doctor gives medicine and tucks them into bed. Doctor brings patient soup, hot water bottle etc.
Multi-storey car park – They have a multi-storey garage and they park it with loads of cars. Then one person drives their car towards the car park and the other decides if it’s full or not
Police chase – One person drives the “Bad man’s car” and the other person drives the police car.
Disaster – They get a pile of cars and put them upside down. Then they get an ambulance to save the people in the cars and a digger to help flip the cars over.
Shopping – They get a “shopping bag” and some “money” and go to the shops. Tell them 3 things each that they have to remember then they go away for a few minutes and come back with their shopping. They tell you what they bought and if they forget something asked them to get it. They go back to the shops!
Road mats- are great investments. You can make your own really easily.
- Road works (they build Lego barriers so have to work out another way to reach the station etc.)
- Follow the leader
- One will be a pedestrian and the other will be the driver and the driver stops for pedestrians so they can cross the road
For car lovers
“Police” where a police car chases a naughty car then arrests the driver or “ambulance” where a car crashes and an ambulance saves the people in the car. They also play “car crash” which is just 2 cars chasing each other and crashing.
For train lovers
Trains: with cushions and aeroplane which involves packing suitcases ie emptying every drawer and toy box , check in and then the flight
Try expanding on the train stuff but having some people driving to the station in their cars – needing to get gas, car wash on the way etc.. to incorporate garage. Use level crossings to have people out walking as crossing roads. The train passengers can wait in the cafe and have a snack. Some of the passengers can be at the supermarket. Then they can all go home ……..
Other suggested situations:
doctor or hospital? pretend you’re not well and let them lead you to the bed, tucks you in, touches your head and give you medicine. then cooks some soup, toast and tea for you.
What about restaurant? (You take his order and serve him or vice versa)
Taxi? (Set 2 rows of 2 seats and he drives you where you want to go then you pay him)
Lego/Duplo? My 2 use Lego to build toys like car parks.
fishing sitting on beds with yo-yos
cooking/tea/baking thing this takes longer if you can brave playdough making carrots peas etc etc and i set the real kitchen timer for about 3mins to cook stuff
a picnic. Collect all the teddy bears/a sheet/ plastic or paper plates
hide and seek games /looking for treasure
when we did trains they had real money and i write on bits of paper for tickets for the ‘little people’ in the train
TV programmes like CBeebies, show some great examples of role playing and pretend play ideas children can imitate to kick start their creativity.
Try “joining” all the toys together. E.g The alphabet street jigsaw is the town, children from the doll’s house go shopping there in cars from the garage and often stop off at the supermarket, hairdressers, library etc..
Try using stories from books for him to act out so he starts to see role playing – in time he will start to build his own. Our bears and a doll are Goldilocks characters etc..
‘go to the moon’ – we put boxes on our heads, then you have to jump up and down three times, count to ten, stand on one leg, spin around 5 times and then you are on the moon and we have to walk like we are marching and talk in moon voices – seems to have really sparked the imagination.
sheet or a blanket over a couple of chairs and I send him camping – give him a little picnic
More dressing up box ideas
Small suitcase or briefcase
Apron and wooden spoon
Gloves, purses, necklaces
Tablecloth
Hats
Scarves, bandannas
Pillowcases
Not an exhaustive list but I hope some of these ideas will get you thinking about the play-activities your children enjoy.
How is their pretend play? Do they participate in pretend play or avoid it? Do you need to help kick start them ? What pretend play ideas do your children love ? Share them here.
The kids participated in fun activities and asked lots of questions.
I found my oldest digging in the garden when we got home; with his sidekick looking on. He’d found the little shovel, rubber gloves and was happy to make room in the garden for his apple seeds. He’d run back into the house for some newspaper to lean his knees on when I asked what he was doing.
Minus a few late blooming flowers now looking stranded on the grass; he was doing a great job. He loves his gardening after he started his Summer flowers at his cousin’s house.
I had to smile. I could see his thoughts were a combination of his preschool theme on Apples and this conservation center trip about plants and growing.
He was being a scientist.
******What ways have your children been curious this week?*********
I received this in the mail. I thought it would be useful to share the response below.
Melody wrote in a question .
” ….My 3 year son doesn’t really dress up or play role playing games. I really noticed it when his friend Claire came around to play last week. He loves to push his little car up and down for hours though or his train. He doesn’t interact or anything…. Claire wanted to dress up and play but my son wasn’t really interested…. Do you have any tips or activities for encouraging more role playing?”
Good question Melody.
Boys and girls often play differently and it’s seems more obvious in the preschool years. Gender differences are very apparent. Read the fascinating book Boys and Girls learn differently or visit The Gurian institute for additional books and journal articles or try the controversial book Why Gender Matters. Each child is learning at a unique pace and regardless of gender introducing your kids to a variety of activities is an easy way for them to learn new skills.
Creative play, role playing or pretend play is an outlet all children should enjoy. It’s a fundamental and a valuable skill to nurture early as it feeds into creativity, schooling and imagination.
At the beginning , my son who is particularly shy needed the stimulation and ideas to start an activity. He was much like how you describe your son. Then gradually he would take it and make it his own. Now, there is nothing stopping him. He has many ideas of his own that are original and many borrowed from playmate friends, and what he sees around him.
There are many ways of encouraging your children in playing role play games if they are not interested. These ideas might just kick start their creative side if they are lacking ideas or confidence or maybe you just fancy some new ideas of interacting yourself. Perhaps they are not ready yet.
The important point to remember is to let your child lead. Interact to start, if needed, but let them make decisions. Be prepared to step away and let their creativity explode. Loose your inhibitions and let’s get creative!
Ideas for the dressing up box or peg for boys -cowboys, policeman, pirate, doctor, vet, various bags so they can shop, wallets for their toy money.
Collect these from charity shops/Goodwill. Most major retailers carry a version with all the accessories. But kids value customized ones from home just as much. Daddy or Mummy’s long white shirt/blouse is just as good for a Scientist/doctor/vet’s coat as one bought from the shop.
Make your own toy money. Have your own family currency.
For more ideas see the next post. Still Stuck on pretend play
Looking for some more cute pretend play items try this blog entry.
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Elaine trained as an Occupational Therapist before working with children with autism on home based early intervention programmes. Through her work in the home she helped parents to support their child’s learning, implemented behaviour plans and assisted with teaching self help skills for example toilet training, self-feeding and dressing. She has also had experience of supporting children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, adapting the curriculum to make it accessible to them. After the birth of her first child, Elaine started Littlesheep Learning – www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk – an online store with an ever-growing range of teaching and learning materials for everyone who wants to help their children reach their potential.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c0a94680-159e-4bb4-a27e-05facf55b070)
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