When I was a little girl, in fact till the age of 13, my sisters and I love playing pretend. We would play pretend every day of the week. We would pretend to be parents, doctors, shop keepers, teachers and so on. Growing up, we didn't have the latest or the coolest toys. We often use what we have.
When we are playing indoors, we often use our pencils as spoons and our dolls as babies. We also often take plastic cups and plates from the kitchen to play. My sisters and I would "visit" each others house and try to host dinner or lunch. And if we are playing outdoors, we used leaves as money to "buy" rocks or twigs, made cakes out of muds and "rice" out of sand. We would use old plastic tubs as bowls and a large branch from some where as the wooden spoon. It was one of the most fondest memories I still treasure.
The other day, the Lil' Tiger came up to me and said "Mummy, Mummy, look look.... Hat!" She was telling me that she was "going outs" to go "opping (shopping)". This took me by surprise because I never knew that we can start playing pretend at this age. This is one of the reason why I love my day care so much! They teach my daughter things that I never knew she could comprehend at this age. Looking back, I don't even know when us sisters start playing pretend. We just did.
The Lil' Tiger also came up to me on the same day, asking me to drink from a pretend cup that she fashioned out of one of her blocks. She pretended to feed me with her colouring pencil and said "eat eat" and I had to pretend to eat from her "spoon". Amazing.
So now, I am trying to think of ways to play and get the Lil' Tiger to explore through pretend. Not sure how am I going to do it yet.
What was your favorite game of Let's Pretend? Were you a princess? A teacher? A doctor?