Now Freddy is four years old, the way he plays has developed to become much more focused on role play and imaginative games. Acting out different scenarios allows him to explore emotions and feelings, develop social skills and learn more about his environment. Language skills and communication are practiced and creativity is exercised. Through these games, there is scope to learn and develop knowledge about different topics. And all this is cleverly disguised as play!
Bigjigs sent Freddy the Zebra Crossing Set, which is part of the Bigjigs Road range, an interconnecting range of toys that fit together to build exciting environments for imaginative play.
The set includes three connecting road pieces, one with the Zebra Crossing markings, two pedestrians, a car, two Bellisha Beacons, a lamp post and a School road sign.
Straight away Freddy started a dialogue about what he could see and what things he recognised from the 'real world'. "There is one of these at my school," he said whilst holding the School road sign. "Does it mean 'No Running'?" he asked. I explained that it was to warn cars to slow down because there might be children crossing the road.
He also recognised the Zebra Crossing and 'the big yellow lights' as something he had seen outside his big sister's school. He was very interested and it allowed me to explain to Freddy all about road safety, the Green Cross Code and how to use a zebra crossing.
Then it was Freddy's turn to try out what he had learned using the little wooden pedestrians and the wooden car as props to demonstrate how to cross safely. He wheeled the car to the zebra crossing and the boy and girl checked to see if it had stopped before crossing over. Perfect.
However, he also discovered that is was fun to mow down the pedestrians, the lamp post, school sign and Bellisha Beacons in a scene reminiscent of something from GTA5. But that's the fun of play time - anything goes!
Playing with the set also gave rise to some counting as Freddy counted the stripes on the Zebra Crossing, the number of freestanding objects and the number of times the pedestrians crossed. Colour recognition was used as he named every colour he could spot.
Dexterity and co-ordination are enhanced as little hands manipulate the pieces and fit the road pieces together (Freddy insisted on having a long run up to the crossing rather than having it in the centre.)
As with all the Bigjigs Road and Rail wooden toys, this toy will grow with your child, giving them the tools to unleash their imagination, learn about new things and develop their creativity to build exciting new worlds to play with.
