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Pretend Play: Why Your Preschooler’s Brain Needs It & Ways to Spark Your Child’s Interest
One of the single, best activities for your preschooler’s brain is pretend play. Although hosting a bear tea party or tying on a cape to save a friend from “bad guys” may appear as “fun,” pretend play activities develop a wealth of important skills in a child’s brain. To learn more about pretend play and its benefits to the brain, keep reading. You’ll also gather ideas on how to use household items to enhance your child’s pretend play experiences.
Pretend Play Builds Important Brain Pathways
- Pretend Play Develops Abstract Thinking Skills: In order to read, write, or solve math equations, a child’s brain must use abstract thinking skills. For example, the brain must know that a circle represents the letter “o.” A similar symbol, a “zero” represents a quantity in math. To use abstract thinking, a child’s brain has to understand that symbols can represent a larger concept. When a child uses a hairbrush as a telephone, a microphone, or a conductor’s baton, the child’s brain has demonstrated that an object or symbol can be used as another object or concept.
- Pretend Play Develops Social Skills, such as Empathy: The skill of empathy, experiencing another person’s feelings requires that we look at the world from the other person’s point of view. During pretend play, children assume the role of another person or character. This change in roles offers children practice in experiencing the world from another person’s point of view.
- Pretend Play Develops Problem Solving Skills: Pretend play presents countless opportunities for children to solve problems and conflicts and this problem solving is a skill that builds numerous new pathways in the brain.
- Pretend Play Develops Planning and Organizational Skills: Although some of the activities in pretend play seem to be invented on the spot, planning and organization skills are working inside a preschooler’s brain. While playing store, one child may decide, “I need money” and will need to search the play space for items that can represent money.
Easy Ideas to Spark Pretend Play and Creativity for Preschoolers
Try the activities on this list, all of which send kids off into the world of imaginative play. Most of these creativity boosters use everyday items around the house, or low-cost resources in your local community.
Book-based Adventures: This imaginative play activity starts with a trip to a local library and is focused on one of your child’s interests. Visit the library with a theme in mind – a topic that your child is personally interested in. Examples of themes: pirates, frogs, boats, pizza, etc. Choose picture books that relate to the theme. The main idea for book-based adventures is for the parent to read the book to the child and then have a few items set out as a start for pretend play. Before reading any of the books to a child, flip through the books and search for a few items that can help children take on the role of any of the characters. This can be as simple as reading a book about pirates and setting out a laundry basket, a short broom, and a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. Often without an adult’s suggestion, children will sit in the laundry basket, row with the broom, and hold the cardboard tube up as a telescope. Read one book at a time and don’t read a second book until your child asks or your child’s pretend play has stopped all together.
Dress-Up Box & Mirror Adventures: A full length mirror with a box of dress up clothes next to it can provide plenty of fun for preschoolers, as well as opportunities to construct new brain pathways. Use any box (the size of a laundry basket or larger) and fill it with a variety of clothing items and props for kids to try on. Clothing items can include shoes, vests, old costumes, capes, belts, and hats. Props are other items that children might carry or hold. Examples: toy binoculars, a toy tool box, purses, sand bucket, a tape measure, a wand, etc. Periodically change a few clothing items and props. Add items that relate to seasons and holidays.
Empty Box Adventures: A box, large enough for your child to fit inside, is one of the best toys for brain development. When you, neighbors, or family members purchase a new appliance or item in a big box, reuse it as a brain boosting tool for a preschooler. A parent can spark creativity by asking a child, “What would you like to do with the box?” Parents can also provide markers and/or paper and tape for a child to decorate the box so that the box becomes a particular item in pretend play – a bear cave, a house, or an oven, perhaps.
Allow your child to engage in pretend play as much as possible. It’s low cost and full of brain building activities.
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