June 15th, 2009 Old MacDonald pretend play Posted by Melitsa in Memes, play activities, pretend play

We’re playing Rhyme Time. The previous post was a photo of a Nursery Rhyme scene you and your child together are trying to guess. If you’ve not done this yet………what are you waiting for

This post gives you the answer and some activities we did with it.

Pretend play gives your child the chance for unlimited creativity. On Monday we’ll celebrate that through Nursery rhymes.

Here’s the answer………………………………….

Answer: Old MacDonald had a farm

We have this set with farm and zoo animals. We keep it altogether in a wipes box so we don’t loose all the animals.

Pretend play inspired activities

1. Sing the song, ” Old MacDonald had a farm” using this Rebus. More on Rebus reading here.
2. Gather together a collection of Animal stories to read for inspiration.
3. Act out a story using one of the animals. (Hen) This time we used Dora’s Eggs

 I played with my 3 year old. Inspired by the story we collected eggs ( plastic Easter egg leftovers) and an empty egg carton. He sat the miniature hen on top of the egg- just like the story.

I asked a few questions to extend the play as appropriate . ” What’s her name?” I let him lead though and tried not to direct the story but expand. “She looks cold, is it rainy?” I took my cues from his story.

Add new characters: “Oh look here comes the cow? What’s her name again? What do you think she wants?”

Turns out Katie, the cow wanted to go on a journey…….and so the story goes on.

Why didn’t we do a craft?

There are lots of craft related activities with Nursery Rhymes. Today the focus is on encouraging pretend play; joining in with your little ones and extending their pretend play.

What I hope he learnt?

• New vocabulary in context
• Stories can become real
• Opportunity to work on our animal sounds.
• Flexibility. We can change a story and add characters
• Pretend play is fun
• To sing 3 or more verses of Old MacDonald without getting mixed up in the ei ei ows
• Playing with mum is fun
• Our toys can be anything we want them to be.
• that even though wise old big brother can point out that hens that size can’t produce Easter eggs that size….we can in OUR story because it’s our story.

Come join in Monday 22 June. What Nursery Rhyme will you choose?

What play activities did you do today?