Pretend play is essential to childhood development, as it helps children explore their imagination, develop social skills, and learn about the world around them. Different types of kids’ toys are perfect for encouraging pretend play, and your child can benefit from them on many levels.
So whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or caregiver, we’ll show you how these toys can help your child develop essential skills and have fun at the same time.
What Are the Best Toys for Encouraging Pretend Play?
Open-ended toys are the most suitable kids’ toys for encouraging pretend play. That means you and your children can use them in various ways, and they help kids of all ages develop their communication, exploration, creativity, visual discrimination, and problem-solving abilities.
Dolls and Stuffed Animals
Ensure that your child has regular access to toys like dolls, stuffed animals, or puppets in large quantities. Children quickly attribute emotions and ideas to these “people” and “animals” through creative play, and they frequently use them to express, explore, and work out their ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
Children love acting like doctors and giving their stuffed animal friends check-ups and immunisations, although they may detest going to the pediatrician and getting shots. Kids frequently use stuffed animals to create tea parties or to play diners when they open pretend restaurants and serve food from their toy kitchens.
These pretend play situations with plush animals frequently reflect the social cues children pick up from the people around them and the interpersonal dynamics they see among their friends. In other words, if you teach your child to be kind and empathic, you may see them playing pretend roles like a compassionate chef or doctor.
Doctor’s Kits
Once they start playing doctors, they’ll need a doctor’s set, excellent for encouraging children to learn about health and medicine and developing their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Another great benefit of these sets is helping children develop empathy and understanding of others.
Kitchen Sets
Making special foods in pretend kitchens is another activity that most children like. Children of school age like acting out the parts of servers who take orders, prepare delectable dishes in the kitchen and serve clients at a restaurant.
The best aspect of kitchen play for older children is that they may frequently assist with actual cooking and baking by performing chores like helping measure and mix ingredients for baking something, tearing lettuce leaves for a salad or washing cherry tomatoes.
Toy kitchen sets are a fantastic choice for encouraging children to practice fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Kids also learn about cooking and nutrition. They can also help children develop social skills by playing with others and taking turns.
Dress-Up Clothes
Who would have thought that something as simple as dressing up and staging a fake tea party could impact children so positively? Inexpensive accessories, such as hats, plastic tiaras, and old Halloween costumes, allows them to transform into any character they can imagine, such as a princess enjoying a tea party or a benevolent pirate who distributes wealth rather than stealing it. They can use their imaginations to make up tales about themselves, the adventures they’re going on, and other people to play different roles in the make-believe situations.
And there’s even more good news when parents participate in the fun: Studies have found that children who play with their parents are more cheerful and less likely to experience anxiety or depression.
Cars, Trucks, Train Sets and Other Vehicles
Toy cars, trucks and trains are fantastic for encouraging children to learn about transportation and developing their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. They also help children to understand the concept of movement, distance and speed.
When they play with vehicles, children can use their imaginations to explore different scenarios and practice problem-solving skills. With realistic designs of all kinds of cars, trucks and trains, youngsters can also learn about different types of vehicles and the purpose that they serve.
Building Blocks and Legos
Building blocks and legos help encourage children to learn about construction and engineering and develop their spatial awareness. They also help children to be more creative and to think in a more structured way.
When using building blocks, the little ones have to make out corresponding shapes and sizes to build towers, houses or animals. Not only do they learn how to put them together in the right way but also have fun counting and sorting them by colour, size and shape.
Why Is Imaginative Play So Important?
Children learn through doing and imagining. Have you ever seen your youngster pretend to use a stone as a racing car or a Lego piece to hop around the table pretending to be a human or a bunny? Your youngster is giving an object motion and action by using it to symbolise something else. But this imaginary game is more complicated than it first appears. Pretending helps children develop skills in a variety of crucial developmental areas.
Language Skills
If you’ve ever observed your kid playing pretend, you could hear some words and expressions you didn’t think he knew! In reality, we frequently hear our words echoed in children’s play. Kids are excellent imitators of their parents, teachers, and other adults! Your youngster can better appreciate the power of words through pretend play.
Social Skills
Your youngster is actively experimenting with social and emotional responsibilities when he plays pretend (or dramatic) games. He learns how to share responsibilities, take turns, and problem-solve creatively via cooperative play. Your child experiences “walking in someone else’s shoes” as he assumes the roles of other characters, which aids in the moral growth skill of empathy. That, in turn, increases his self-esteem.
Thinking Skills
Your child can solve many challenges during pretend play. Your child uses critical cognitive thinking abilities that he will use throughout his entire life, whether when two kids want to play the same role or when looking for the ideal material to create a roof for the playhouse.
