I just love imaginative play so much, where children get the space to make believe and create their own stories, worlds, and ideas. A lot of times people say that play is "just playing" and "not really doing anything," but according to all the research and all of my observation, play is the place of a child's work. It is in play that they are making sense of the world around them, working out problems, and showing what they know.
In the past few weeks, Silly Bean has really started to do some imaginative play. Even just today before naptime, we were playing with his train set that he got for his birthday, and he said in Chinese that the trains are going to the park, and then to Target (now you know what our daily/weekly life is like :P), and the baby is going in his house (somehow, everything has become Silly Bean's house, Silly Bean's car, etc).
It's all very simple at this stage (the play will get more complex as he gets older/has more vocabulary/has more life experience/can have more direct social interactions) but it is just so fun to see how he interprets what we do and what he thinks our lives are about day to day! We should really stop going to Target 4x a week, or he'll think this is what we are supposed to do every day...
In addition to playing with his train set, Silly Bean loves "cooking" and serving everything he's ever eaten: from things he enjoys, like 粥 (Chinese rice porridge, which he ate a lot of when he was sick last week) to things he doesn't really enjoy, like oatmeal. We often have to remind ourselves to "pretend" and not really chomp on the spatulas and utensils because there isn't real food on it.
Silly Bean also has a bunny that we call "Special Bunny" because originally it was "mama's special bunny that you can play with" and immediately became "Silly Bean's Special Bunny"--funny how that always happens. Silly Bean brings it everywhere, and often Silly Bean will pretend to feed him, give him medicine, or say that he is crying because he is sad that he fell down (a common Silly Bean occurrence in our household). The other day, Silly Bean sat Special Bunny down on the chair at the little table, unprompted, so they could both eat an afternoon snack together. He even walked over with a carrot to share with Special Bunny.
He kisses him when he goes to sleep, says hello to him when he wakes up, and hugs him anytime he finds him (on the couch, on the floor, etc.). We wonder if the way Silly Bean takes care of his bunny is Silly Bean working out how we as his parents care for him (we seem to do all the same things, hmmm), which is so sweet!
No comments:
Post a Comment