Pretend play is fun, but also a necessary component for child development. Children learn to use their imaginations when they pretend to play out different roles or scenarios. This helps with social relationships, emotional skills, thinking skills, problem-solving, but more importantly, it’s just fun!
As an advocate for all things Early Childhood, it’s important to me that my daughter has every experience that she would have if she were in daycare or preschool. During our #totschool sessions, we make sure to include pretend play. One of the great things about pretend play is using lifelike props such as purses, costumes, wigs, play food, and so much more.
My daughter enjoys pretending to cook and bake, so we gifted her a KidKraft kitchen set for Christmas. Although we bought her a ton of play food and dishes she still wanted to use our food containers and utensils from our kitchen. One day I gave her an empty box of pasta and she was so excited to pretend to actually cook the pasta in her own kitchen set. It’s a good idea to buy the durable plastic play food for pretend play, but many of the play food sets that are now sold in stores are made from wood with labels that peel very easily or from wooden boxes that bend and tear. I decided to share this easy DIY to make your own play food boxes. This DIY is also perfect for daycare, PreK, and Kindergarten Teachers.
