The Benefits of Role Play in Early Years
The Benefits Of Role Play In Early Years – Includes Gifted Items
As an early years teacher I cherished the “dress up area” and pretend kitchen we had set up in one corner of the preschool setting.
Role play is an important activity for young children and is something that helps our little ones to foster and develop a number of essential skills necessary for life.
Today I’m excited to share some fantastic new kids learning toys from WordUnited which I personally chose as they have a lot of value both in both a Nursery and the home setting.
Pretend cooking and pretend food sets are perfect in assisting young children in developing a greater awareness of life and of the wider world around them and I’m excited to discuss this in more detail read on. If you find this article useful you may also enjoy learning about screen free activities for preschoolers.
The Value of Role Play
Role play both at home or in the preschool or nursery setting is both fun and educational for little ones.
Pretend play allows a “social space” for children to to develop basic speaking and listening skills as well as providing opportunities to explore the greater and wider world whilst using creativity and the imagination.
Related: Check out the Home Learning Free Resources Hub over at WordUnited for more ideas.
Hape Pretend Cooking Set
When you have a pretend play area, the one thing you can really do with is a good quality cooking set. This Hape cook and serve set is ideal for just this.
This high quality wooden cooking set includes a pot and pan, plates, utensils and salt and pepper.
Little ones can role play using these fantastic resources and you can add either pretend food or even use playdough to ignite a child’s interest and get them role playing and cooking in the kitchen.
Using Pretend Food for Role Play
One thing I love is good quality pretend food. Whilst I do like plastic fruits and toys I’ve always found wooden food sets to be more sturdy and to last longer.
In fact I recall getting our wooden fruits out when Sylvia was little and planning a picnic in the lounge. It was super fun and gave such joy to my child.
This is why I was excited to get my hands on the Tildo Wooden Fruit Salad and Tildo Wooden Winter vegetables crates.
Both sets of pretend play food are super colourful and bright and contain a number of easily recognisable fruits and vegetables.
Wooden Pretend Food Sets
The one thing I specifically love about the Tildo fruit and vegetable crates are the fact these wooden pretend food items are made from high quality and responsibly resources materials.
You can find mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, wooden strawberries, apples and bananas plus much more.
I particularly love the combination of wood and felt material which adds texture to the vegetables with leafy components.
Also the markings and paint work on the fruits and vegetables make these fantastic learning resources look amazing and transform them into appealing toys with sensory value.
I can’t wait to see little family members having fun with these new wooden food sets in the coming weeks! It’s going to be fantastic.
I love that these Tildo pretend food sets along with the Tildo Eggs and Dairy Set come with small crates.
This allows further creativity such as setting up a shop or store and allow kids to engage in decision making and or counting exercises as they place various foods. into crates during pretend play.
Developing Fine Motor Skills Through Play
Whilst we may automatically think of the social benefits of role play and of teaching children to mimic real life, we might not automatically think about the way pretend food and role play, kitchen play and pretend cooking can help children to develop fine motor skills.
Tildo wooden fruits and vegetables allow kids to practice picking up different shapes and different sized objects.
This will automatically help the small muscles in the hand, wrists and fingers to become more dexterous which is important for real life eating, dressing, amongst other fine motor skills.
Even more fun and awesome is the fact the Tildo Wooden Cutting Fruits Set and the Tildo Wooden Cutting Vegetables Sets come as half fruits which can be joined together and cut apart using a safe pretend play knife.
Pretend Play Boosts the Imagination
Not only does this add another level of fun to pretend food, this is an opportunity for little ones to learn how fruits and vegetables may and do often look different when chopped in half.
Having the ability to cut the fruits and vegetables and then join them together again allows one to investigate and create and be more imaginative in their “pretend cooking” and I just love that!
Whether wearing my teachers hat as a qualified early years teacher or whether I’m simply creating a learning environment as a parent at home, these fantastic pretend food and cooking items are perfect for little ones.
These can easily be wiped down after play and kept clean and are sure to provide many hours of fun!
Check out the following related articles:
Wooden Jigsaw puzzles For Preschool Kids
Confetti Slime Recipe Little Ones Will Love
Making DIY Perfume With Children
Angela Milnes is a Qualified Early Years Teacher who has specialised in Preschool and Kindergarten teaching. She has a wealth of experience teaching young children and is passionate about kids crafts and having fun as a family. Angela has also taught cooking skills and loves to share both family recipes and easy crafts here on The Inspiration Edit. Follow her on Pinterest!
