Best present for imaginative 5yo?

[ApplesTheHare]

If you have a really imaginative 4/5yo what do they have that's really encouraged their imagination? My niece is about to turn 5 and LOVES stories and making up her own stories so I was wondering what I could get her for her birthday to encourage that? My sister has mild sn and doesn't do books or reading or encourage that stuff well as she's not enthusiastic about it, so it would be great to support that side of things.

[Curlyfrizzball]

What about puppets/a puppet theatre? My DD loves making up stories and she had one for her 4th birthday - she loves it!

[Seeline]

Anything like Playmobil, Lego. sylvanian families etc where she can use the characters to act out little stories.

[Datschi]

We were given an Eeboo magnetic play scene, and DD has loved using it to make up lots of stories.
Basically it is a big magnetic picture of a riverbank with a castle in the background, and lots of magnetic characters to move around. I was surprised by how much she loves it.

[WidowWadman]

Story cubes?

[claraschu]

The things which my kids loved at that age: wide mixture of dress up clothes (not bought kids costumes, more stuff from the attic, grown up things, wild pieces of material, etc); a small shop with till and pretend food, etc; huge varied mixture of plastic animals, wooden figures, wooden town, various odds and ends; an old fashioned wooden desk with lots of little drawers and cubbyholes (£20 at a car boot sale) which I stocked with pens, paper, empty note books, stickers, sticky notes, and lots of other school and office supplies; mixture of stuff for junk modelling, including things like old stamps and buttons, catalogues to cut up, pieces of interesting paper and fabric, as well as the usual stuff; huge oversize cardboard boxes which we made into castles, tunnels, a boat, a carriage, etc, with the help of box cutters, leftover house paint, and various decorations.

My kids never played much with the puppet theatre or dolls' house: not sure why-

[PurpleSkyatthewateringhole]

Dd loves ELC happy land fairies and still plays with hers at 4yrs old. I'm starting to build a Schleich/Papo supply of fantasy world style toys that both DC can play with together now that they are passed the stage of putting things in their mouths (and avoiding the requests for upgraded/new android tablets).

[ApplesTheHare]

Thanks everyone!