Tonight, we had a famous astronaut cowboy and his fireman sidekick crashing in our living room. After having six kids we’ve been able to learn a few different techniques for encouraging our kids to use their imaginations. Halloween has been over for a couple of weeks now, but we still haven’t put away the boy’s costumes. In fact, this year we bought some extra costumes knowing that it could help the boys with their imaginative play. Wil and Rockwell ask to wear their costumes almost every day and it’s fun watching them use their imaginations as they pretend to be different characters in them.
Finding ways to increase your kids imaginative play is so important during early child development. It allows your kids to be able to relate to the world by imitating what they see in their day to day life. It also provides opportunities to strengthen the creative part of their brain and develop problem-solving skills while increasing their social skills.
This week we are excited to travel to New York City as guests of Melissa & Doug (this will be a link to the mission) and take part in a roundtable discussion about the importance of play. We will be talking with a select group of influencers and child development experts to discuss how to help parents, caregivers, and teachers more effectively encourage and facilitate playtime. I’m excited about what I can share and also learn from this discussion. After we get back I’m planning on doing a recap post with all of the things we learned from this discussion and also sharing some ideas on how to incorporate more play.
As part of this trip, we will also be getting an exclusive preview of the new FAO Schwarz store at 30 Rock ahead of the public! I think I’m more excited about this than the kids. If they have one of those giant pianos from the movie Big I am going to lose my mind. Plan on lots of posts during our experience on my Instagram and look forward to a fun giveaway from Melissa and Doug after we get home.
This post is sponsored by Melissa & Doug.
It’s very important to let kids play