Close observation of children involved with small-world play can provide a wealth of opportunities to develop their oracy and language skills, writes Anne O'Connor
Watch a child playing with small-world toys and it is likely you will hear talk of one kind or another. A very young or inexperienced child may appear to be 'babbling' - making noises as they move the farm animals around. Perhaps you will hear words and phrases as dinosaurs are made to march along in a line. You may hear complex dialogue between a parent and baby as the child is put to sleep in its cot in the doll's house. Or you may chance upon an elaborate retelling of 'The Three Bears', while plastic 'sorting' bears are moved around in a shoebox. Where two or more children are playing with the same toys, the possibilities for communication increase - although talk is not inevitable, and not all children will be vocal.
Careful observation of children engaging in small-world play, therefore, frequently provides the practitioner with valuable information about children's developing oracy and language skills.
The term 'small-world play' can be used to describe imaginative or pretend play using miniature objects -such as people, animals, vehicles and dinosaurs - in a setting of the same scale, for example, a doll's house, farmyard or garage.
Learning opportunities
- Small-world play provides powerful opportunities for children to develop language and communication skills, by giving them the chance to imagine and recreate experiences and weave the knowledge, skills and understanding gained in other areas of their lives into their pretend play.
- As they engage with the doll's house, or the dinosaurs, they explore the language of social interaction and conventions of speech, as well as imaginative storylines. Such exploration can be done in the child's first language, and often provides a meaningful opportunity to explore vocabulary in an additional language.
- Children may act as spectators, narrators or commentators on the small-world activities being played out.
- They move through babbling and sound-making, to single words and phrases, to using symbolic or narrative language. From playing and talking alongside others, they progress to associative, co-operative and collaborative play - exploring, practising and consolidating conversation skills.
- They bring their growing awareness of story and narrative - using vocabulary, speech conventions, characterisation and plotlines - acquired from their experiences with rhyme and song, books and storytelling.
- Linking meaningful opportunities for writing and reading to small-world play can provide children with purposeful reasons for recording their storylines or for incorporating print in their play.
Resources and activities
Commercial products
- Playmobil provides a wide range of settings and figures (including different gender, occupation and ethnicity). They are very detailed and sturdy, but often include tiny accessories that are easily lost and unsuitable for very young children.
- Animals can be bought in varying sizes and often come in sets or categories, such as wild animals or sea creatures (see Nursery Equipment, with Nursery World, 2 May 2002).
- Doll's houses and their contents should be designed for imaginative use and need to be sturdy to withstand lots of use. It is possible to buy ranges of fittings and figures, and look out for multi-ethnic 'families'.
- Train sets (for example, by Duplo or Brio), and cars and roadways can be very versatile, particularly when used with other small-world toys.
- Dinosaurs are a very popular focus for small-world play. For some children, using the correct names and terminology is important; for others, the dinosaurs perform the same role as small-world animals or people.
- Story and film characters, similarly, often act as a stimulus for imaginative play (beyond their original storylines) and can often be collected cheaply from fast-food chains.
- Other resources can provide inspiration for children's small-world play, often unintentionally so. Watch how children initiate small-world play using mathematical equipment such as sorting animals, and capitalise on the adaptability of the resources.
Home-made settings
Make your own environments for small-world themes.
- Fill a large sand/water tray with grass, stones, twigs, leaves, sand and water, to create a dinosaur or rain- forest environment.
- Use shoeboxes to make storyboxes for tiny figures. Decorate appropriately and store the figures inside. Provide writing materials and origami books for writing labels, captions and stories to go with the boxes.
- Link small-world toys with the outdoors and construction or block play areas to increase the scope for imaginative play. Similarly, storyboxes and small-world environments can provide powerful settings for scientific and mathematical exploration, where children use talk (to themselves, with each other and with the 'characters') to solve problems and connect with ideas and experiences.
Organisation
- It is important to store and organise small-world resources so they are easily accessible.
- Keep a flexible attitude to the range of resources on offer to ensure their use is not dictated by adult interpretations of what are suitable themes.
- Experiment with ways of storing and labelling, and observe how the children use them.
- Involve the children in decisions about organisation and categories for storage, and encourage them to think of ways that will make tidying up easier and more fun.
- Consider safety issues, particularly for very young children, and ensure equipment can be adapted to suit the needs of children with disabilities or those with special educational needs.
- Make available junk materials so children can design and create their own small-world resources, such as wooden clothes pegs for people and boxes for houses.
Adult role
Developing children's communication, language and literacy through small-world play requires sensitive intervention and observation. To be effective:
- Play with enthusiasm, engaging alongside the children and being guided by them, as opposed to dictating the direction of play.
- Model appropriate vocabulary and language, by responding sensitively to children, demonstrating strategies such as listening, initiating and sustaining conversation and negotiating gently and respectfully.
- Provide an environment rich in meaningful literacy, where stories are told as well as read, and where print is available in a variety of scripts.
- Record and observe children's developing oracy, their speech and language needs, and their use of non-verbal communication.
- Respect children's choice to sometimes be silent.
- Inform parents of the value of small-world play in children's learning and language development, and how they can support it.
