Learning Through Play: Small World Play

Small world play is one of our favourite activities at Green Leaves! It offers a wonderful learning experience, and opportunities for children to practice their role-play skills, expand on their imagination, and develop their social skills. It encourages turn-taking, storytelling, and not to mention independence. This activity can be done in a group, or individually.

What’s small world play? It involves creating a life scene in a miniature setting, where children can enact different scenarios and situations using toys and objects. It’s a fun activity to try at home, you’ll be amazed by your child’s knowledge, interpretation, and imagination!

What you need:

• A theme – we love a zoo or a bug world
• A large tray, or table, to set the scene with your chosen animals or creatures
• Enhance the scene by adding foliage from your garden, it can be herbs, or anything interesting that offers a sensory experience, for example, seed pods, bits of wood. You can also add pantry items such as oats, chickpeas, lentils – it can transform a scene into an animal habitat, and it becomes a fun sensory experience

Tip: To catch all the bits and pieces so that you’re able to reuse them in the future, place an old sheet under the tray or table so that you can save them.

Once your scene is ready, let your imagination go wild!