Pretend Play

In the past few days the twins and I have come up with some fun games for them to play that use their imaginations and have them sharing and taking turns.  (Hoorah!)

The first game I came up with on the spot because Gabe was carrying his fishing pole around, obviously wanting to use it, banging it on the floors and walls.  Not wanting him to break his precious pole I decided to make him a fishing game.  I cut about 15 different sized fish out of colored construction paper and drew eyes, smiles, and scales on them, then put on a small piece of double stick tape.  I grabbed his pole and wound more double stick tape around the end and he was ready to go!  I turned over an activity mat and we used that for the water, spreading out all the fish on it.  Then he went to town, picking out his fish, lowering his rod, tapping the fish gently, reeling a little and then lifting up his prize.  He was so excited.  I think we played for a solid hour the first day.  When Addie came home she was excited, too so we set up her pole the same way.  We've played this game every day since.  Not only do they have to take turns in this game, but we name the colors of the fish as they're caught, count them when we're done, and fish for them by size ("Catch the smallest fish!")

In the second game they get to pretend to be garbage truck drivers!  First, we used bristle blocks to build the garbage trucks.  Then we rounded up six small containers to use as garbage cans and filled them up with crumpled up bits of construction paper.  We set the cans out, 3 per street, and got each kid a truck to start their route! Driving down the street, one house at a time, they carefully lift each can and dump its contents in to the back of the truck. After they've emptied all the cans they drive to the dumps and unload their trash.  Then we fill the cans back up, set them out on the streets again and switch routes!  They're having a great time, making sound effects and taking turns.