When you are a 4 year old, playing make believe games is a big part of what you do! One minute you can be a superhero fighting crime, next a train driver en route to the seaside. Role play games can be inspired by using props, which help bring to life the games that are born from a child's imagination.
Bigjigs sent Freddy a box of wooden groceries featuring solid wooden blocks, beautifully painted to represent a range of familiar food tins and packets. Each one has the product name and an image on them, and make perfect creative stimuli for role play games involving shopping, cooking or kitchens. From budding chefs to little shopkeepers to busy mums and dads, the scope for pretend play is as big as the child's imagination itself.
Freddy arranged his groceries to create his very own grocery store. He loved 'selling' the cans and packets to his sisters, his dad and to me and shouted out "Come buy your food here!" like a seasoned market trader. We enjoyed going to Freddy's shop and we paid for our shopping in his currency of choice... chocolate coins!! Playing shopping games is a great introduction to understanding money, although Freddy's prices were super inflated...£101 for a cornflakes, tomato sauce, cookies and orange juice! I know prices in the shops are expensive, but thankfully they aren't this bad yet!
For children, playing games based on the things they see grown-ups doing, helps them to make sense of the world around them, encourages empathy and teaches important social skills. Role play exercises children's minds, allowing them to grow and develop while having fun.
Role play is just one of the ways that the Bigjigs Groceries can be enjoyed. Little ones can practice colours, counting, 3D and 2D shape names, letter recognition and reading the 'food' related words. Freddy also loved stacking the similarly shaped blocks into towers and organising them by shape and size.
Bigjigs range of role play toys includes a wonderful range of gender neutral products including kitchens, market stalls and village shops along with a host of food accessories, fruit, vegetables, bakeware, scales, tills, shopping baskets, kitchen appliances and cookware, all beautifully crafted in wood.
Taking an interest in food through role play provides an opportunity for parents to talk about healthy eating with their little ones and lets future budding chefs cook up a (mess free) storm in the playroom!
Find out more about role play toys on the Bigjigs website.
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