Mumsnetters share their imaginative play tips and ideas with The LEGO Group

[BellaMumsnet]

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Whether it’s an indoor fort made of cushions, playing pretend shops or having an intense car race around the living room, learning through play is a great way for children to tap into their imagination. The LEGO Group and LEGO Foundation have launched an online platform called ‘Build the Change’ to encourage children to get creative (while having fun) when thinking about the environment, climate change and biodiversity. This is why The LEGO Group would love to hear your tips for getting your children involved in creative imaginative play.

Here’s what The LEGO Group has to say: "Everybody loves to play, especially children but we know it can be hard to make the time for it. Play is not only super fun but it’s a great way for our children’s brain to develop and to learn new skills and knowledge, especially if play is centred around a topic – such as biodiversity or climate change. Build the Change is a really great opportunity for you to play with your child/ren in a really creative way and hear from them what they think about these topics. Create the space and time – it’ll be worth it!!"

Do you have a fail-safe activity that your children enjoy every time? How do you tease your children away from video games and encourage them to invent their own fun? Do you find it easy to keep them interested in creative play? Do you have tips or ideas for encouraging imaginative play that you can share with other parents? Do you have to inspire your kids to play creatively or do they use their own imagination to dream up new games? How does your child explore the world through imaginative play?

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[Letsleepingdogslie8]

My DC love the challenge of building things taller than them. They use as many different objects as they can and then we take photographs.

[TheRosariojewels]

If you give my children a giant cardboard box each they will play with them for hours. They become teddy hotels, dens, dolls houses, boats, robot costumes...

[queenoftheschoolrun]

Going for a walk always sparks ideas, building dens, climbing trees, making things from twigs, acorns, pine cones and the like, setting up scenes for lego mini figures, treasure hunts, photo challenges etc. We try to go every day.

[sarat1]

Sometimes I allow a cuddly toy to suggest things. It will whisper in my ear and say its time to board the train to the farm (in the other room) and off we go!

[Clara0015]

Getting out the dressing up box is lots of fun for my daughter and keeps her busy

[bettertimesarecomingnow]

Board games
Jigsaws
Card games
Guess who I am with a post it on your forehead
Slime, slime and more slime

[Toombumber]

We had a 'pool party' in the bath- you know those big soft plastic trugs with the handles that you store toys in? My son and my daughter aged 3 and 6 got in their swimming costumes (their choice), put on goggles, filled the trugs with warm water and bubbles IN the bathtub, sat in the trugs and fired water pistols at each other. It was such fun!

[chris8888]

Oldest one (7) likes lego and anything she can make like craft beads, glue and glitter. Current favourite is making rockets. The 5 and 3 year old like baking, messy play or current favourite being different creatures. The 3 year old is going through the spider man phase to so everything is spiderman at moment.

[Florida123]

Getting my daughter involved in making play dough (or slime) is one sure way of keeping her busy for hours. She'll decide which colours we're making then once we have a few containers, we'll dig out all her kitchen tools and she'll spent hours creating houses or play areas for her pups, or 'food' for a birthday party for her favourite toys. Foolproof!

[Twistiesandshout]

DD is incredibly creative and comes up with brilliant ideas, treasure hunt maps around the house, clues to find secret toys etc.

[sarac79]

We enjoying making models out of Lego or playing board games, especially Guess Who or Castle Panic

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

I second a Big cardboard box. We've got one that's now a bus. Before that it was a TV. Before that a Den.

The huge box we got a cross trainer in kept us going through lockdown 1. A castle, a space ship, pirate boat and as it started to collapse it was a great surf board. It was a slide at some point too.

Mine also do great mash ups of stories and films. Mermaids go to hogwarts is a fave at the moment.

Or mixing different toys together works well. The Thomas the tank engine brio railway hosted a hatchimal party before a dragon rescue. It made sense to DD at least!

[Mummaheathervi]

I’ve spent a number of years working with children with disabilities, namely autism and I’ve learned a couple things about entertainment! Firstly, it’s your attitude and positivity that can make any situation fun! Everything and anything can be a game.
And every child is different, you know yours best. If your kid likes video games, find ways to use that interest to excite them. Print out their favourite characters and hide them for a hunt!

[marymod]

We like making things - Christmas has been great for this - using cereal boxes to cut up and create boxes or stars that can then be covered and used to cover presents or as decorations.

[Terminallysleepdeprived]

Dd is 7 and still believes in magic, fairies etc. During lockdown to help her deal with the complete isolation (he is vulnerable due to having a chemo treatment to reduce her allergy reactions) I bought some metal fairy houses for the garden and she started to make up stories. Then I got some fairies who would move leave trails around the patio (god bless snails) where they had walked and danced. She writes letters to them to talk about her day or her worries and they write back.

She also does a lot of baking with my mum and dad (support bubble), walking and den building in the woods and my dad got her interested in the frogspawn in the local pond, they went every week and drew the changes, they even brought some home to study.

She is quite good at regulating her own screen time, but we do have to nudge every so often.

[MiconiumHappens]

For the younger ones hide the thimble keeps them entertained for ages.

It's as simple as it sounds. We have a special thimble (it's just a thimble but it's the special one!) Gets hidden and they find it.

For the older ones the WiFi gets turned off and they have the choice of playing or chores. This works a treat as they obviously choose play. They engage more with us and the younger ones and for a short time play like children!

[sbruin1122]

hide and seek!

[CoffeeAndEnnui]

Anything which involves flipping the way things are usually done delights our dd and inspires her to bring her imagination into our everyday lives. Building a dining room fort under the table from 'stolen' living room cushions and throws, making a bedroom crazy golf course from books, pyjamas and clothes, eating dessert in the bath while wearing a crown of bubbles and reading by the river in a fairy circle of sticks and stones are some tiny acts of family anarchy which never fail to make us smile

[ILoveFlumps]

Each week we read a book, and then theme activities about that book. So we will do a craft activity, a play activity, and various adventures all themed about the book. Certainly helps them to enjoy reading and use their imagination.

[sm2012]

I try lots of different types of games to get my kids to be active or try something new. We make our own play dough so there's lots of it and I let them use other toys with it like figures or Lego so they can spend ages making up their own games. They love hide and seek either in the house or inside and we do some junk modelling as well which is a great way to use all the recycling that builds up!

[villagefox]

My son loves a good treasure hunt - indoors or outdoors. Sometimes I create cryptic clues or other times it's just x marks the spot!

[VividImagination]

Mine enjoyed “teddy bears picnics” which was a blanket on the floor, all their soft toys and a snack lunch. It kept them entertained for ages and the crumbs were contained in one place.

[Yolostela]

We've a big journal which we divided up with postit headers, each is for different types of activity - outdoors, indoors, build games (lego), creative art, nature walks, gardening etc. When we are at a 'what shall we do' we delve into our prewritten suggestions. For things like lego we can be practical, build a vase for flowers picked on a walk, a hedge hog home or imagination free choice. Planning for bored moments really helps.

[Alo2019]

My daughter is struggling with spelling so we trying to make it fun with have 2 baking tins with sand in I write a word in first and get her to copy in second one. We have also been trying to spell out of our food x

[Chelsecaz]

We love going outdoors and finding sticks/twigs/stones/leafs etc then coming home and making up different pictures with the items. We made our own Christmas decorations this year out of pine cones we found on our travels and the star for the top of the tree was made from the sticks and twigs. We also make up family picture frames with the stones (they are used to make bodies) then we write the names of the people underneath. Quite a few Christmas gifts were made by ourselves this year. It kept the children entertained and also kept the cost down