With the weather getting colder and colder each week, indoor play activities will once again be taking up a big part of any child's daily routine. While digital activities such as movies and video games are easy to fall back on, it's also important to make sure your children get involved with some activities that don't rely on technology. In doing so, they can even learn a thing or two during play! In this blog post, we will show several ways to play AND learn at the same time with our Playhouse 3D play carpets.

Social skills:

According to Scholastic, not only does pretend play help build social and emotional skills, but it also helps build language skills and thinking skills. There are plenty of ways to incorporate pretend play on our Playhouse carpet and help foster these skills. All you need are some dolls and your imagination! Take your dolls and sit on the play carpet with your child. Choose a scenario you'd like to practice and then act it out. For example, maybe you'd like to pretend a friend has called and asked to speak to your child. You can ask, "What do we say when we answer the phone?" then allow your child to respond "We say hello!" You can then pretend to be your child's friend on the phone and act out a phone call while giving them guidance if needed. This enables your child to practice common social scenarios and gives them the knowledge they need to act appropriately.

Staying safe from strangers at home:

It can be hard to teach your children about the danger of strangers, but imaginary play makes it a whole lot easier. Place a doll at the front door and tell your child "Someone we don't know is ringing the doorbell! What should we do?" You can then have a conversation with your child about what we do when a stranger is at the door. For example, you can tell them that when that happens they should get the closest adult. Explain to them about the danger of strangers and have them act out the appropriate response. You can also act out similar scenarios so your child understands what they should do if certain situations arise.

Kitchen safety:

Although the kitchen may be one of your child’s favorite parts of the house (and ours too!), there are still many hidden dangers that young children may be unaware of. Our Playhouse carpet makes it so much easier to introduce these topics safely from a distance. For example, you may want to teach your young child that the stove top gets hot and it’s important that we don’t touch it. Set up a scene with dolls in the kitchen and put some pans and/or food items on the Playhouse stove. If you don’t have any play pans or play food, you can always cut some out using construction paper. Tell your child you are getting dinner ready and show that when you get too close you can feel the heat from the stove. You can even pretend that your doll hurt themselves after touching the hot stove and use it as another teachable moment about first aid and helping to take care of others when they get hurt.

What are some ways you and your child(ren) play on our Playhouse carpets? Let us know in the comments below!