Expanding Your Child's Imagination Through Play

Any parent or educator could tell you the importance of children learning through play. Here's a cute activity that you and your child (or niece, nephew, grandchild) can do together. Every day your children act out stories with their toys. You may or may not be aware of this, as they might not be, but that's what they are doing. This enhances their imagination through play.

Storytelling Game.

Last summer as part of the summer reading program we created this activity. Gideon adored it so much that he wanted to do it over and over.

What We Used:
A large bag filled with toys. These toys were anything from toy animals to stuffed animals, Little People toys, cars, fabric patches and smaller toys in a wide variety.

What To Do:
Take the bag that the toys are in (ours was see through - yours can be opaque, if you like) and lay it on the floor. Ask your child to grab a toy, any toy and pull it out.

Once they have chosen a toy or several toys ask them to tell you about them. What are their names. Who is this? Is this their friend? What are they going to do?

I wrote this info down, as the library wanted to see the story that we wrote together.

I watched to see what he did with the toys and what he was acting out with words. Once he got started he went along his way telling me a story through play. I wrote the story down and later neatened it up for the librarians to see.

Gideon decided this was so much fun that he proceeded to do two more stories like this. Each one was different, even though he used some of the same toys.

Hints, Tips, And Ideas:

Rotate out the toys used in the bag so that you can use a variety of items. I found that the middle and bottom of the bag were not really used as it was difficult to reach that far down.

Try using opaque bags and have your child pull a toy out at random. The stories generated by this method could be really fun and silly.

When your child is done making their story, you can write it in a book using proper formatting, quotes and so on, and read it back to your child. If they do not appear to remember that it's their story remind them this is the story that they created during the game. (We referred to the activity as a game.)