How does your 4 or 5 year old play?

[Pinchpot]

My DC imaginative games tend to be solitary & involve moving objects from one place to another.

For example they could spend a long time moving toys from the grass in garden to the patio area. When I enquire why, they say they are moving things out of the way to cut the grass(like their dad does) but they never then pretend to cut the grass with toy lawnmower.

Just moves things from here to there, often seemingly mindlessly repetitive.

I'm going out of my mind thinking this behaviour is strange.

Any similarities out there?

Why are you referring to your child as 'they'? Is there a reason you don't want to tell us their sex?

Either way, boys and girls DO play differently. This sort of play does seem a little unimaginative for a 4 year old but he might just need to be helped more.

Play can be separated into something called "Schema" and there are all different types of play within the schema. Here are some of them...

TRANSPORTING (seems to be what your DS Iis doing)
Carrying in bags, prams, trucks or simply carrying things from one place to another.
ENCLOSURE
Putting things into boxes; enclosing animals in zoo cages; drawing boxes around pictures; hiding in dens.
ENVELOPING
Wrapping toys in paper or sticky tape; wrapping themselves in fabric; dressing up.
ROTATIONAL
Spinning on the spot; objects that rotate, such as windmills and wheels; drawing circles.

There are actually 9 schema...here they are

Connecting.
Orientation.
Transporting.
Trajectory.
Positioning.
Enveloping.
Enclosing.
Rotation.

Here's an article about how you can support the child in transporting play www.howwemontessori.com/how-we-montessori/2018/11/supporting-the-transporting-schema.html

I should think you're slightly concerned because it might be more usual for a younger child to do transporting as part of their regular play. A 2 year old for example.

By 4 it might be more usual to get interested in connecting...like Lego etc. Or Brio.

And also by 4, children are often role-playing "You be Spiderman and I'll be Batman" type play.

Have you helped him by introducing character play?

Thank you for your reply.

Sorry no big mystery to sex, I have a boy.

He likes lego etc but is not very creative & when we as parents are involved loves imaginative play, role play but when he is left alone to play as dad is working & I am busy doing house work etc he resorts to this type of play on most occasions.

As he is nearly 5 years old I am just concerned if this type of play is typical.

Do others find their dc at 4 years or 5 participating in this transporting type of play.

My 3YO enjoys lining things up and putting things in boxes etc. However I'm not worried because she also plays some lovely imaginitive games and plays with dolls etc nicely. She'll often incorporate more imaginitive things into the schema play too eg the other day she lined all her soft toys up but then gave them all a 'gymnastics lesson' one by one and made them do straddles/forward rolls etc. In the last few weeks she's started more rollplaying type games too eg pretending she's mummy and I'm the 'baby' I think if what you're describing is just a phase then not too worrying. However if it's all he's doing and you don't think he's actually capable of rollplay/imaginitive play then this might be cause for concern. Do you have any other worries about his development? Is he at preschool? If so definitely see what they make of him and ask them to observe him. They're all different and it takes great diversity to keep this world turning but if your gut instinct is that something is up then I'd try and get help now whilst he's young and impressionable. The obvious things you can do to help is just to mirror the kindof play you feel he needs eg in the scenario find something that could be a pretend lawnmower and invite him to 'mow the lawn' eventually he might do it himself xx