NOW CLOSED: Win a £100 Argos voucher by telling Chad Valley your tips for toddler play

[AnnMumsnet]

Chad Valley want to hear from you about how your toddler plays - in particular how you (or your child's carer) encourage imaginative play, and how you get them to play by themselves? Do they do role play (have you ever "heard" yourself through your child? or does a sibling get bossed around and told to be a certain character? ) - what are their favourite games to play by themselves (maybe when they think you're not looking?!)?

Please share your top tips and stories on this thread - everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £100 Argos voucher.

We'll use a selection of your tips and stories on the Chad Valley pages on Mumsnet.

Many thanks
MNHQ

my ds2 has sn he likes to play on his own rather than with others he get lots of toys out ,cars ,books dolly,pram,anything that makes noise, and things that stack as he sits there with his tounge sticking out concentrating we make tents on the floor and get sheets out to paint on he loves it loves his sand pit and the trampoline too.

My DD has SN she loves building with bricks and also loves musical toys . We make dens with her desk and do our disco dancing to the karaoke machine :)

I rotate toys otherwise he would play with same things time and time again whilst getting frustrated as he was bored.

My two DSs are both very different in their play.

DS1 is 4.5 and likes stimulated play - he loves puzzles, writing, drawing, learning and having interaction with his play. He enjoys a lot of physical play, and has just started imaginative role play (e.g. Mummies and Daddies, Buzz Lightyear vers Woody etc). He likes creating things like baking cakes, pretend food, making cards and pictures as presents. And he loves getting dirty! To encourage him to play, we use things like gardening toys or cars in paint or playdough.

DS2 is 3 and completely different. He is quite happy in his own little world playing. He loves dolls and figures and will spend an hour at a time re-enacting scenes out of Toy Story with his Buzz, Woody and Jessie. Characters all talk to one another and he is more than happy playing alone. He enjoys playing with his brother and 1 or 2 children at nursery, but is much more often found with the train set or dolls playing "make believe". He will not entertain getting messy - in fact Friday was the first time I got him to put his hand in scone mixture, and then to use a paintbrush! That was at playgroup, with a lot of 1 on 1 coaxing from me.

I have never really consciously 'encouraged' imaginative play - although clearly I participate as required (mostly as a customer in their "restaurant" (my children watch too much Masterchef)) - they have both just picked it up by themselves. My only tip would be to check how things are being used before you decide they are rubbish - the best acquisition ever for the play kitchen was some 'pretend' £20 notes which were sent to me as part of some junk mail - they have been constantly re-used for the last 2 years (prices are high!)

Now they are old enough to actually play together I do sometimes get DD wailing because DS has changed some rule or taken away some (imaginary) object in their shared, and incredibly complex, imaginary world. Top Tip #2 is that slights and injuries in the imaginary world are serious and need to be taken that way...

my ds who is 4 plays with dd who is 21 months all the time. they miss each other when ds is at nursery. they like me to play too, but very rarely ask, i have to ask to join in! they play at going on planes (we travel a lot) packing their little bags with essentials. i am pilot- : this is captain mummy speaking" and restaurants , making up menus, cooking in their little kitchen, bringing me play meals and ds always bills me:) also they make assault courses with cushions and tents with sheets, plus pirates of course. Often ds who is allowd to work the cd player gets dd to do msuical statues, or he plays the piano and does it. she is too baby for most of it, but is very game:)
dd gets bossed, she is funny at counting for hide and seek- 2,2,2 2 coming! ds tells her to go in the naughty corner when he gets bossy and she ignores him - she toddles off there and waits ...and i have to take her out, tell him not to do that etc etc.
they play role play, shopping, cooking, doctors doing injections...tidying up, very handy. dd makes a mess on purpose and ds tidies after her- they love this for some reason..

IME the key is to find something they already love and suggest new ways of using it.

Example: DS (3.10) is obsessed with Postman Pat's helicopter, which comes with a winch. I pointed out that he could use the winch to "rescue" "stranded" cars - voila, hours of independent play.

You simply can't go wrong with Duplo or Playdough. And the old trick of bagging up toys and storing them then bringing them out again at a later date works brilliantly.

My DD loves to do a play version of whatever I'm doing. So, she stirs and tips rice in bowls at the table while I cook or washes the tooth mug in the sink while I clean the bathroom.

I encourage imaginative play by taking the lead and acting out 'grown up situations'. Just all of a sudden I'll knock on the living room door and put on a funny voice asking him what he would like to eat today. He'll say something like 'Macaroni please Mummy' and I'll 'make' him some (out of nothing, just actions and noises), which he then 'eats'. Then I'll ask him for something too - this can go on for ages!

If I want him to play by himself, I'll start a game, give hima few 'grown-up' objects, like a pot and a wooden spoon with some dried lentils in and go and do what I have to do - he usually gets on with it if I kick start him. Ds role plays all the time - I often hear him mimicking things I say to him, which can be very funny! Ds2 is slightly too young to join in yet, but he is very interested in what his big brother is up to - and I think ds1 can't wait for him to be able to join in.
His favourite game to play by himself is always a 'saving someone' scenario, or being saved himself! He is really active and will play outside on his trike for hours. He also loves to paint and play with bubbly water - anything can be something. He doesn't limit the thing to just being the thing it is. A block therefore can be a telephone, a crocodile, a hat, an elephant, a bubble...anything! And I think it's important to encourage this. They key to getting him to play for longer on his own is to interject at times (not very often) and give the scenario a new spin, which catches his imagination and gives him new ideas.

I think reading stories really helps children develop their imagination. DS often acts out the plot of the books we've read together recently.

I also try to let the children help out or copy day to day activities. So if I'm cooking then DS might stir while DD gets a bowl and a spoon on the floor so she can "cook" too. If I'm dusting then the children get a duster too.

And props help. Happyland is good for playing houses or driving and DS can spend an hour playing with cars and a road mat. DD loves DS's old toy pushchair. Not all props need to come from toy shops either. DS's favourite game is playing with his diggers on a cement mixing tray in the garden thats been filled with compost. Scooping and piling the soil can keep him amused for ages.

My kids LOVE playing in the garden.....something as simple as collecting rocks or twigs can keep my DC entertained for a good hour! Seeing the different bugs, birds, plants, etc. facinates them. Might have another Attenbourogh on our hands!
DC will often mimick me doing gardening, or pruning, raking or mowing and always helps to 'water' the plants. (with empty watering can). So sweet!

When we has cleared some bushes from an area to extend the veg patch and make a flower bed it was a muddy area for a while and my DS age 2 got his bruder toys out and used his diggers to fill up all his tippers and move it from one end to the other and back again. Also Lego is really good our planes regularly land to fill up with holiday makers and jet off, he likes to lock up the "naughty man" with the police station and continually talks while he plays. He loves to disappear up to his room and build his brio and play trains.
My DS's never had a problem playing on their own, they soon got used to mummy being busy cleaning up after them all and just got on with it.
My DS1 is in reception class and I often hear him sat quietly mimicking his teachers like giving instructions like asking them to sit down quiet on the floor.

We've definitely 'heard' ourselves through our son (2.6).

At one point he was being a real pain about eating tea and we were constantly cajoling him to eat properly. I was sitting knitting on the sofa one day while he messed around with toys. Suddenly I realised he was having 'tea' with his plastic cow at the edge of a toy plate.

"Good cow. Cow eat all tea. Well done cow."

He then proceeded to pretend to shower the cow and compliment it on washing its hair (another thing he was having tantrums about at the time).

My son (2.6) likes to pretend play, so he will happily take all his toy trains and talk to them and make them do things in a story book fashion that he narrates (out loud) to himself. "oh, you're going too fast, you're going to crash", "toot toot, bang, crash, oh no, you've crashed and have got stuck in the mud - who's going to help you?", "oh look, here comes etc etc". He will happily play by himself for 5-10 mins. He will also get books out and sit on the sofa and "read" outloud to himself - basically gibber on and on because he obviously can't read the words. His favourite game with me and his dad is to get his blanket and we have to "come into my house", which involves sitting with him under the blanket. The blanket then becomes either a train, a shop or a house and he then tells you what's happening, eg. "the train's going to Ireland and we're going shopping to buy cheese and vegetables" and you stoically have to sit under the blanket for 10 mins while all this goes on. He loves older children (he has two step siblings 10 and 7 who are here every weekend) and he will happily try and join in (generally annoy) them both but will also happily try and play games with them that he blatently doesn't understand. When they are around, they have to go into his house instead of us. Perfect.

I think my tip would be to just back off and let them get on with it. I overhear lots of parents really closely directing play, "don't do that, it doesn't go there, don't be silly it's not an x it's a y" blah blah blah, especially with crafty projects. Just give them the stuff and don't worry if the finished article doesn't look like the picture.

Our best toy at the moment is a 'mud kitchen' on the allotment, cobbled together out of charity shop buys. When I'd finished watering the plants today I wasn't allowed to go home until 4yo dd2 had perfected her mud pie. Hours of fun.

My toddler loves pretending to copy ordinary things that we do like eating/drinking/pouring tea/sweeping up. And bringing things to us and her toys to join in. She likes to feed her teddy and she told Teddy "love you night night" before she said it to us!

Her favourite game are probably pretending to be a train, and lining up sticks (or preferably someone?s legs) to run up and down as a train track. Playdoh and the sand and water table/pretending to look after the garden.

She gets really fed up with toys that try to do too much at once. She likes a cash register where you can press buttons and open the drawer but not a cash register with flashing/singing alphabet buttons, which tends to take her out of her game, so she gets bored of it much more quickly.

Since you are a toy company, for the love of God I am fed up with pink. If pink is the only option I won't buy it no matter how good it is.

my DD (18 months) loves to play with things that aren't her toys, and I think because she doesn't often get to play with things like spoons, insides of loo rolls, bubble wrap she likes to play with them even more. We will occassionally give her an idea, like using a cardboard tube as a trumpet, and then maybe as a sword the next day, but she tends to be fairly happy to make up her own games (like sliding play figures down the tube like a slide)

We've been very lucky with her as she's very happy to play on her own, our kitchen joins on to our living room and she'll often come and "talk" (babble) to us, and maybe pass us a toy at the gate and then once she thinks we've said enough will wander off and play again.

I keep 'messy play' in the kitchen, using old party plastic table cloths to protect my surfaces and floor. That way, if they make too much mess I can just throw the whole thing out. It means they can be as creative as they like and I can pretend that I am not uptight about the mess. Just don't touch my walls!
:)

We never throw any cardboard boxes away, decorate them,paint, stickers, whatever they like and pretend to drive our cars, tractors even space ships.

I help my children to cut any paper shapes, switch on a lamp and try to guess what the shadow on the wall represents.

If there is no playdough at home we make our own, add food colouring play, knead, make animals, cut.

We put 2 chairs together and cover it with a blanket, pretending that we are in a cave and there is a big bear in the other room.

Plastic boxes, lids form the pots, wooden spoons, empty bottles filled with rice, pasta, lentils, salt and a band is ready!

The list is endless..... I'm SAHM and I do have the houswork as well not just playing but even housework can be fun for children as long as we don't interrupt too much and let them enjoy.

My DD is 2.9 and imaginative play has always come really naturally to her. DH and myself will join in with her when she asks us to, with her directing and us asking a few questions or making an occasional suggestion. She loves acting out 'going on holiday' at the moment so she'll pack some things in a bag, get in the car and then tell us where we're going- but she's not that interested in what happens when we 'arrive'.

Other favourites come from books, she went through a phase of enjoying bear hunts where we would find something different to go through in each room- mud in the kitchen, a river in the hallway and so on. Then in the bedroom we'd both crawl under the duvet and I had to be the bear and scare her away!

She's also good at independent play, I think the best thing is to allow them to get on with it from an early age as long as they're happy. My DH has now taught her to amuse herself in the mornings until our alarm has gone off which is extremely helpful.

My son is happy to play on his own as long as I am in the room with him and have some input every once in a while. He loves anything craft like - he loves to cut stuff out with his (childproof!) scissors even if he doesn't actually make anything with the bits once they are cut up!

He loves to play outside whatever the weather and I try to encourage that as much as possible. Last week we potted some seeds and this week we are monitoring their progress! His sunflower has just become taller than him which he is fascinated with, he doesn't believe it is going to be huge!

My 16 m.o. has always been happy to play on his own for a while when the mood takes him - usually when he's exploring something or reading books. His favourite things are household equipment rather than toys, although he loves his hammer & pegs set.

Filling & emptying of all sorts and ball throwing are what he enjoys doing by himself. He's a bit young yet for imaginative play.

It's never occurred to me to encourage imaginative play. It's just what the girls do the whole time. Dd2 is 2.7 and she can amuse herself without any toys at all for quite a long time.... I hear her feet having quite emotional conversations with each other in the back of the car!

She loves to pretend to go shopping with a baby in a buggy, or wait at a bus stop with her teddy. She sets up endless tea parties for me, cooks a lot of eggs and soup, and rides on trains. She also likes to carry a shoe around on a cushion and pretend to be Cinderella.

She likes to be Pippin to dd1's Auntie Mabel. And she'll be the cat for dd1 too. I don't think she's ever really managed to boss dd1 around, although this afternoon I did find myself being firmly told, 'If you keep doing that I will take them away!'

for imaginative play I just get out the pots and pans, put them on an upturned box and add dried pasta adn watch as they "cook" for hours. or else - this sounds really silly - i make characters out of my hands who talk and need to be fed, or i give the kids silly names and let them act out what their name implies.