My DD is 3 and has a speech delay and developmental delay. Her imagination is just starting to appear.
Apart from her SALT exercises which are games I don’t structure play with her (they do need to be done everyday). She goes to Nursery 3 days a week and does structured play there but when home it’s all free play. I let her guide the game.
So earlier I was sat on the sofa next to her and she grabbed my hand and said “Quick mummy out of the boat” so we played a game about a boat and an island with monkeys and trees on. Later we had a teddy bears picnic on the island with all our cuddly friends (and the cat).
She also role plays, so will make “food” on her toy kitchen for her pretend picnics or her dolls who sit in their highchair and she feeds them.
Of course I do ask questions. So during the island game I asked her what colours she could see, we counted the pretend stepping stones to cross the lake to get to the beach, we counted the monkeys and described them as “Funny” and “Cheeky” when they stole a pretend banana.
I also read to her, usually after lunch and then at bedtime. And do structured activities in the form of swimming once a week. We also walk and get public transport everywhere (she can’t walk far) so use that to talk about buses and cars and diggers or whatever. We also make cards in the run up to someones birthday and Christmas and also have recently made a costume for her Christmas Play at Nursery together.
But I don’t know if she needs more structured play? And if so what kind of things would be classes as structured? We do jigsaws or whatever but she gets bored and we have a lot of appointments so I like games that we can either leave and come back to or continue to play while we’re out and about.
For further context and to avoid drip feeding it's just me and DD, she sees her dad for a couple of hours a week occasionally.
Should I be introducing more structured play?
AIBU?