the emergence of pretend play...

...turns out the wooden bowl i placed for ben to put some of his outdoor collections in is serving another purpose - making salad. i was cleaning up some toys in his sandbox, and he surprised me by coming up with the bowl filled with several leaves, and said "making salad". i think this is one of the first instances of pretend play i've seen.










we walked around, finding more things to add to the salad - pieces of pinecone, leaves, small sticks, mulch - it turned into quite the salad. he then wanted to mix his salad, so we found two small sticks that he could use (he loves to help me mix the salads we have for dinner).









the exploring we did around the yard to look for ingredients made me think about something mentioned in the creative family - fairy houses. i can remember creating something similar when i was younger, which evolved into working with my sisters and cousins to create our own cabin made entirely of sticks (we called it camp near wilderness) at our grandparent's farm. we worked on it for hours every day, weeks at a time, each summer for several years. i still look at the spot we built it every summer when i'm visiting - though the sticks have long since scattered, the memory is still as strong as ever. though ben imagination isn't quite ready to create something like this, i'm looking forward to making them with him in the future.

inspiration (courtesy of FamilyFun)...












future reading...
fairy houses... everywhere! - Barry Kane