Small world play is straight up awesome and kids love it! Let’s find out all about small world play: what it is, how it benefits your child, and what toys are useful for it.
What is Small World Play?
Small world play simply means imagining and acting out stories with miniature scenes (either from real life or imagined) in a mini play scene created with small figures, toys and household or found objects.
Picture a little farm scene with some farm animal figures and a few toys or objects to set a farm scene like grass, fences and food for the animals to eat. A green silk could be the grass, some sticks glued together could be a fence and some lentils from the kitchen could be the animal feed. When your child acts out farm scenes with all this, that is small world play!
How does it benefit your child?
Small world play is super fun and comes very naturally to most kiddos. Here are some of the skills that small world play develops:
Creativity
Anytime your child is imagining or playing make believe, they are flexing their creativity muscles. Being creative does more than just build artistic skills (although it does that too!). It means being a better problem solver since they can come up with multiple solutions or see things in new and different ways. Building creativity encourages confidence and satisfaction.
Vocabulary and language skills
Imaginative play builds language skills as kids come up with how to express their ideas. It also gives them a fun place to try out words or language patterns they’ve heard out in the real world.
