I don’t think there is anything more precious than listening to little ones playing make believe. Pretend play is more than darling to listen to, though, it is actually an incredible important part of child development.
So – how do we help our children engage in pretend play? For the very most part, little ones will do this all on their own when given the time, space, and set up. But sometimes, our children are so busy that we forget the importance of giving them a daily period of absolute quiet and solitude.
Not those of us in The Quiet Time Club though! The Quiet Time Club is all about ensuring our little ones have a daily period of quiet to pause, reflect, rest, and do so much independent learning and growing, too. It is about gaining a rhythm to our days, a peaceful flow which allows everyone in the home to thrive.
One of the best parts of The Quiet Time Club is how every single month you receive a calendar with a whole month’s worth of Quiet Time Activities. Another best part is how those Quiet Time Activities are all practically no prep …
But the VERY best part of all? Each month you only need 5 SUPPLIES!
For this month in The Quiet Time Club, members needed: felt, pipecleaners, pasta, paintbrushes, and tweezers. Using these materials we created an entire month of daily, engaging, quiet time activities for little ones with the intent to engage them into quiet, independent play, so they could settle easily and transition into their one hour of independent rest and learning.
Our activities focus on a variety of skills: learning letters, numbers, practicing fine motor skills, sorting, colours, imaginative play, pretend play, and creativity.
Today I wanted to share with you one super simple pretend play activity from The Club.
This set up we call, “Feeding the Animals” and all you need is a stuffy, dried pasta with a hole, and a long skinny ‘something’ (we used paintbrushes since they were one of the materials from the week, and novel. It’s quite likely your child has never done something exactly like this before – making it brand new, engaging, and a perfect way to draw them into a quiet time).
Set up this activity in a lovely way, really inviting little ones to want to be a part of it! You might lay down a blanket and close the curtains and have a lamp on for softer light. Set the tone for quiet time.
Next, you can choose a few special stuffies that are looking rather hungry. Have a few bowls with dried pasta (penne works very well) and some skinny paintbrushes. And that is all you need!
Little ones can use the end of the paintbrush to pick up the dried penne, delivering it to each of their stuffies. They can feed it to them directly, pop it in a little bowl in front of their stuffy, or do something entirely different.
The idea of these Quiet Time Activities is to spark imagination and allow little ones to transition into this period of independent play. A pretend play idea like this is perfect for this role.
So there you have it. A peek into one of this month’s daily quiet time activities from The Quiet Time Club. Want to join me? I would love to have you!
Join The Quiet Time Club right here >>> https://www.howweelearn.com/quiettimeclub
Thank you so much for reading!
xo
Sarah
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