When children pretend to be shopkeepers, doctors, and fairy tale royalty, they flex their creative muscles – but that’s not all.
In imaginative play you will see the manifestation of a child’s knowledge of real-world situations and boundaries.
Irrespective of a child’s ability, imaginative play is an opportunity to develop this alongside skills such as communication and language, problem solving and emotional competence.
A child’s response when role playing can be physical, emotional, social or cultural and helps to shape their understanding and discovery of the world around them.
What play theories support imaginative play?
Lev Vygotsky strongly believed that play had a central role in the fostering of children’s cognitive development.
His theory focused on society and culture, indicating that children learn continuously by engaging with others.
While there are many different play theories, which have gone on to inform practitioners about different types of play, Vygotsky’s definition of play was role playing, or imaginative play.
He believed this type of play was effective because imaginary situations allow children to take on and act out different roles.
Vygotsky believed everyone is born with basic mental abilities, and what children learn from adults or friends is how they develop these abilities.
So rather than learning through prescribed activities or teachings, he believed imaginative play gives children the freedom to work through ideas and concepts for themselves based on their previous interactions.
His theory explores how combining thought and language through imaginative play lays the foundation for complex cognitive skills like planning and carrying out activities or controlling behaviour.
How do social contributions inspire imaginative play?
In imaginative play children often practise activities which they have seen at home or on TV. For example, a child might pretend to be in a kitchen, washing up and re-enacting steps from the cooking process. When they do this they are recalling from memory actions and processes and these will eventually become basic life skills.
Even though they are playing and missing steps out, this imaginative play stage contributes to the development of a well-rounded child with practical knowledge of the world. This all happens as they play, without having to push them into real-life situations too quickly.
Equipment such as our Mud Kitchen encourages children to have fun and get their hands dirty while also trying out the specific vocabulary and actions they have witnessed or observed.
When children centre their play on play houses, or vehicles such as cars and trains, they are actually practising real-life conversations and working on problem solving skills. Of course they don’t go into imaginative play with this goal but its effects make it an important part of childhood.
When pretending to go to a cafe or shop, children develop independence by testing out phrases without fearing failure or embarrassment.
Creating imaginary conflicts between characters allows them to understand their friends’ reactions to different behaviours or methods of communication.
When playing mums and dads, children are learning about cultures and lifestyles as well as gaining understanding about relationships and emotions such as a sense of compassion.
These are vital aspects of child development that don’t tend to be covered by normal lessons. In a global society it helps children to understand the way their local community works. Therefore, it’s important to give children time to practise and learn on this smaller scale.
Examples of imaginative play in childhood
Adventure and fantasy games are all about building highly creative stories, developing emotional responses, and learning about worlds and lives that are not our own. At Hand Made Places we have a lot of love for this classic style of imaginative play!
For example imaginative play can be encouraged through a pirate-themed playground using a playboat like the Oakwood Galleon, and a Shark or a Crocodile play sculpture. Put a Bridge with a Castle and a Horse & Cart and you have an instant fairytale kingdom.
Little explorers can even hop on a Train to new lands, where they can go on the hunt for Animal Totems.
The act of ‘world-building’ with a group of friends improves communication skills as children learn to negotiate and make collective decisions. Even if a child plays a game like this alone it can do wonders for their logical thought processes.
Try asking a few questions and it will become apparent quite how detailed the ‘rules’ of their imaginary world are, how much they’ve managed to pick up about the genre from books and TV, and the ways they have found to weave in elements of the real world.
Hand Made Places also produces and installs outdoor role play equipment on a much smaller scale. Our wheelchair accessible Mini Micro World Tables, Sand Pits, and Water Trays are all brilliant for working on fine motor skills and share similar benefits with building blocks and figurines.
Pupils will develop a knowledge of the physical world while engaging in imaginative play with natural resources or with small world play equipment at a table. They begin to understand the direct consequences of physical actions such as pushing wheeled objects together, compressing sand, or making ripples in water.
Playground equipment for imaginative play
Further examples of imaginative play are those which come in the form of physical competition. Climbing Frames and Stepping Logs are often used in games like ‘cat and mouse’ and ‘the floor is lava’. There are lots of ways for children to adapt activities into outdoor imaginative play!
A Hand Made Places Trim Trail is an excellent way of encouraging children to combine exercise with creativity. As well as promoting fitness amongst even the most sport-resistant pupils, imaginative play of this kind teaches children to take turns and play as a team.
Outdoor imaginative play demonstrates what a child already knows and it also gives children the chance to expand upon and share their experiences.
It is over 40 years since child psychology expert at Central Michigan University, Sophie Lovinger, found that daily imaginative play improved and increased language use in children. When observing today’s young generation, it’s evident that this style of play is still as beneficial as it ever was.
In a digitised world it can be difficult to encourage children to enjoy their time away from screens. However, imaginative play also capitalises on the immense levels of information that young people are increasingly able to explore.
All it takes is the right outdoor imaginative play equipment to offer a spark of inspiration on the playground.
