Purposeful Play - A picnic with Barney and Spiderman

One boring afternoon, I decided to organize a picnic for Aiden and his best mates at our home as we were grounded by the doctor because he was sick. I gathered Barney, Baby Bop, Spiderman and a Kangaroo together for a cosy afternoon tea while Aiden prepared the "food" and all other cutlery.

Who would have known that Spiderman and Barney were actually good friends?

It was a pretend play session I arranged for Aiden and a great indoor game. There are many benefits to an imaginative play like this. Children learn by watching, imagining, copying and doing. An imaginative play stimulates the creativity in children and develop their thinking skills as they rack their brains while exploring the many options that they can have in a pretend play. By allowing them the opportunity to imagine themselves in different characters, it can also teach them about the moral skill of emphathy as they develop the ability to put themselves in the shoes of others. Most importantly, pretend play can greatly improve the language skills of young children as they make up interesting dialogues that can be used in the play. Try observing children when they are in the middle of some imaginative play session. Unless they are not interested, most children tend to be more chatty and involved during these times.

Unfortunately, Aiden wasn't really that interested in our picnic after asking Barney if he wanted tea for the third time. We packed up everything and he went off to get changed into something he was more keen on.

This.

I think he much prefer to be Spiderman than have him as the honorable guest at his picnic.

Whatever works.