My kids love to pretend and dress up! At my son's preschool I helped set up a pretend play area at the beginning of November that featured a grocery store and Thanksgiving feast area. They used the grocery store to shop for the food for the feast and then they used the fancy table to have a Thanksgiving feast with their friends!
Since school is now out for the next week and my son is home, I thought we'd try and create a simplified Thanksgiving feast pretend play area so that my son and daughter could play while I got the house ready for our holiday visitors.
Here are some of the materials we used for our Thanksgiving feast area at home:
table cloth, plastic silverware, plates, and cups, our name turkey pumpkins, pilgrim hats, some berries, play food and platters, and laminated placemats.
The kids gathered the different items that they wanted to use and then got started setting up! It was so cute to see them work together to set the table and decide what food to serve. I also loved all the embedded language practice as they served one another food. My son would ask my daughter what she wanted to eat and she would practice telling him. If she didn't know a word, my son would teach it to her.
Our set up wasn't too fancy, but it sure was fun!
We also invited some special guests to join us for the meal!
And just to keep it real... everything didn't stay looking nice and put together
In addition to being a great activity for the kids while I get our house clean, I also really enjoyed having pretend play time with them! They really benefitted from me modeling different ways to act and communicate and I noticed them imitating me when I left later on to go do some dishes.
Pretending is such a great way to develop language skills AND use imaginations!!
Have you set up any pretend play areas in your house? What do your kids like to pretend the most?
If you're looking for more Pretend Play Ideas, I have several collected on my Pretend Play Pinterest Board.
PS- Today is the last day to enter our Melissa and Doug Terrific Twenty Scratch Art Light Box giveaway... so make sure to head on over and enter before it closes!!
I have two kids, including a three-year-old daughter who joined our family through adoption just a few short months ago. She is learning all about American customs, and this will be her first Thanksgiving. This will be a great idea to help her learn about and practice what it means to celebrate Thanksgiving in our family.
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This might be fun to set up on Thanksgiving day, too. I bet my girls would have fun pretending to cook and care for their guests.
I like that tiny picnic table. Where did you get it?
Great idea. It seems so simple yet it wasn't anything I had thought of. I'm setting one up for the week!
Looks like you made it very special for your little ones. My boys would get a kick out of this.