Toddlers and imagination/fantasy play

[Mamabear12]

I am curious, how many of your toddlers have big imaginations or do fantasy play? My daughter is 2 years and 9 months. She seems to have a big imagination...okay I might have helped it a bit by reading princess books, gruffalo book, etc. Plus allowing her to watch some cartoons while her baby brother naps...and bc she refuses to nap now, but clearly needs some rest time after lunch (as do I). Anyway, her teachers mention she talks about the graffalo at school, ghost (she watched a halloween cartoon w a friendly ghost), bumble bees (i assume bc watched the hive cartoon). Anyway, I am just curious about how often others find their children talking about imaginary things.

Also, how many hours a day do your kids watch tv? I feel bad to say, we def have at least two hours a day (spread out a little in morning, mid day and in evening). I do feel guilty about it...but I am finding it difficult to keep her occupied all day long when she no longer naps, in addition she has a younger brother. She goes to nursery part time, we go to the park once or twice a day (as long as its not raining). When its raining we go to our gym for some soft play, or to run around in door tennis courts. She does ballet once a week and we do art/crafts once a day (its w me and consists of either painting, cutting paper (her new favourite thing to do w child safe scissors), stringing noodles on strings, drawing w markers, putting stickers on paper, sticking cut outs on paper). Once a week we also go into a drop in center. I read her at least 5 books a day, sing to her at least 5-10 songs before bed. In addition, she does play w her brother...and yes i also read and sing to her brother...although not quite as much bc he goes to bed a little earlier and easier. Anyway, how else do you fill the day and occupy the kids....im keen to cut down cartoons to just one hour a day. But I also need her to be occupied while i cook, tidy house etc. She also does puzzles once in a while. Oh and we dance together in kitchen as well...bath time is play time as well...bath crayons plus bath toys.

The ideas like not using jigsaws as roads etc don't really prepare children for initiative and enterprise (required in later years) do they? A massive part of science is thinking outside the box.
Imagine if inventors only used things for their "intended" (ie traditional) purpose ... "let's throw out this penicillin mould ... mould must just be mould"
"Magnets are for picking up metal, not generating an invisible power..."
...The scientific way is precisely to try making a road out of jigsaw or legs or whatever. .. Otherwise it sounds like creating cloned little workers.
...and does it mean no Shakespeare, Charles Dickens etc when older, what with ghosts etc?

I'm a bit disgusted by a nursery doing this tbh. I would query it quite high up. My gut reaction is someone has misinterpreted their ideals: otherwise montessori kids wouldn't thrive academically later when clearly they have the same imagination nationally as their peers.

What about Father Christmas etc? Are the children allowed to talk about him? My Ds is 2.3 and I really encourage imaginative play. I love it if he chooses to use Jigsaws to make a road etc as it shows he is thinking for himself. I wouldn't have him in a nursery that tried to discourage that in him.

Oh your daughter sounds lovely , I have 3 daughters and (9,7 and 3) and this kind of imaginative play has always been really encouraged by their nursery school teachers and early primary school teachers. Mainly for their vocabulary and them learning how to "tell a story". My youngest is at nursery school and they have a whole imaginary world in the outside area, I do believe the teachers have named the unicorns that live there .

I'd be concerned as other posters have said about them squashing or limiting your daughters love of make believe play.

My DS also goes to Montessori and they are very keen on fantasy play. It's actually one of the development markers they discuss at the parents' meetings, their imagination developing and moving on from just copying things they see at home. We are often greeted by children telling us they're flying and creating royal families. From DS's description of what he did yesterday, there was a fair amount of pretending to be an Octonaut.

Your dd is perfectly normal
The nursery is bonkers
I say that as a nursery manager with over 20 years experience and a degree and an early years professional status
Imaginative play gives children the chance to explore their imagination and thoughts and feelings to help them make sense of the real world
Not only is it normal, iris essential.
Ignore the nursery, just nod and agree and then ignore
Let your dd be what she wants to be.

I think it would be very rare to find a Montessori nursery school that enforced only using materials for their intended purpose, though I read it frequently on the Internet as a criticism of Montessori from people whose children have never actually attended Montessori. And the theme at our preschool at the minute is sinterklaas (Dutch Santa Claus type figure), for whoever asked about Santa Claus. They've been making shoes to leave out!

In that case I really wouldn't worry about it at all. If she enjoys it then send her still and just smile and nod if the staff mention it again.

Encourage her at home to be as creative as possible. If she is a happy and well balanced child then she'll be just fine!

your nursery are directly saying they don't want her using her imagination?!

Humans are the only animal that 'pretends'. No other animal looks at something and decides, for fun, to pretend it is something else. That is what makes us the most intelligent, creative species on the planet.

I've never heard anything so strange.

In the early Soviet era the authorities thought children shouldn't find out about fantasy figures, but children still invented witches and fairies.
The nursery sounds bonkers.

Yea, the more I think about it, the more crazy I think it is! I have decided to carry on letting her have her bumble and graffalo talk. I love to hear it and it makes her happy. Plus she asks for her princess books every night...two of which are disney princesses. It just seems so silly to enforce plain boring books about house hold appliances lol. Okay, we do have a lot of those books...teaching kids about different objects and real life things....but we also enjoy reading the fantasy books as well :) so I'll just make sure to remind her once in a while it is just pretend or fantasy or we are just playing etc. to make sure she understands difference (which I really think she does).

Really strange..My dd is 2.10 and sounds exactly like yours. I'm very confused as to what they actually want from your dd? What is she apparently not doing that they think she should be in terms of normal development?!
We have a new baby here so lots of tv at the moment too. Current obsessions are all things superhero (The Incredibles) and in this she is aided and abetted by her dad.

And yes I'm sure your dd understands the difference between real and fantasy - even if she might pretend not to! Children are smart.

Greenstone, two weeks before the mentioned the fantasy talk "issue" we had a parent teacher meeting. They basically sang her praises at the meeting. They said she is very bright, smart, language skills are amazing, has done everything she needs to do in terms of development and they want to move her up to next class level because she is ready....always listens, does what is told, very independent etc (I couldnt believe the last few ones because with me, she demands i dress her and do things for her and doesnt always listen etc!). Anyway, then two weeks later they said it only recently started happening the last couple of weeks the fantasy talk so they wanted to know if im doing anything different. Now it has not been an issue bc they say she is not really doing the fantasy talk so much. I am sure bc they swayed her away from it...which okay fine at school. But I plan on letting her do what she wants at home. Although, I noticed her gruffalo and bumble bee talk has recently disappeared. But she does other imaginative talk...like we are on an adventure, riding boats etc. She gets that from watching dora :)

Good luck w the new baby, tv is a life saver for us during the nap time after lunch, which she has stopped doing months ago! She gets tired so needs a little rest and tv is her way of relaxing I guess. It allows me to also relax or get things done like tidying up etc. I do make sure to take them out of the house to the park in morning for exercise. They both LOVE walking around..so after lunch they are tired and baby sleeps while maddie watches cartoons. Although, I should not call him a baby, now he is 13 months!

I would be very concerned about that TBH. They should be encouraging imaginative play. I would be looking for somewhere else to be honest. Just double check that what you think they meant is really what they did mean first! I can't believe it! I would be really sad if my child's creativity was being squashed at such a young age