Last week, I attended a Scholar’s Choice free webinar hosted by Teresa Hadley (Instagram handle @joys.of.learning) called “Small Worlds, Big Stories: Inspiring Storytelling and Writing Play”. Teresa showed many inspiring small world play ideas, but the one I was drawn to the most was a open-ended type of small world play where the young learners could choose what kind of stories they want to tell.
If you know me, then you know I love an epic setup – and I think there is a place for it. Both my kids and I enjoy it and it probably provides some good modelling for them. However, sometimes I worry I’m doing too much of the creative thinking up front and complicating the activity more than I need to.
So, when I saw Teresa’s simple, pared down approach to a small world play invitation – I wanted to try it and see what my kids did with it.
What is Small World Play?
Small World Play is using imagination and small props to create miniature or scaled-down scenes where stories can take place. A common example would be using blocks and figures to create stories about a family living in a house. Kids will often start by acting out stories they are familiar with (e.g., eating dinner, taking a bath and brushing their teeth) and then will expand into more imaginative and fantastical stories as they get older.
Our Experience with this Open-Ended Small World Play Activity
My kids do a lot of small world play; however, this type of small world play invitation was a bit new for them. Of course, they are used to using toys and other loose parts to create their own small worlds in an “open-ended” manner, but they haven’t been presented with that type of play in an activity tray. They were a bit hesitant at first.
The progression of play was
1. They coloured the wood peg people as representations of themselves (of course they did, my kids love to colour natural wood! lol)
2. They started experimenting with the materials and threaded some branches through bead holes.
3. Then the play kind of stalled, and they left the activity.
4. The next morning I tried modelling what they might do with the materials – I drew a road and put out a basic foundation for a house… and then the play exploded.
5. They drew more roads, they each built their own house across the street from each other and put a sidewalk in between. They veered into some STEM building with their houses, which was great! They made gardens, deserts where lizards could live, and stacked cups on top of each other for a “hideout” at each house.
So, in the end, this turned out super fun and I loved watching their creativity. We will be trying more of this type of invitation, now that the kids have a taste for it. I think it adds some wonderful variety into the type of activities we do and encourages the kids to use their imagination and creativity in new ways.
Materials
- Tuff Tray – Scholar’s Choice
- Within & Co. Mat and Wooden Loose Parts Large Surprise Bag – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code: HOUSEOFPLAY10)
- Peg People, planting cups, tongue depressors, small stumps, river rocks – Dollarama
- Loose parts from nature (sticks, branches, evergreens, pinecones)