Who Does Your Child See in the Mirror?
Monday, June 14, 2010
You Are What You Wear…
I’ve written before about B’s love of dress-up and pretend play (Paper or Clothes, What Will You Wear?). As much as I love and encourage imaginative play, the laundry of multiple wardrobe changes gets a little tiresome. A friend compared his total of 5 outfit changes during his birthday party to hosting the Oscars!
Start at the Top
The latest brilliant addition to our pretend props: a hat collection. B just received some gently used hats from my aunt (a preschool teacher) and now he can change personas in an instant – at the drop of a hat, even! (Couldn’t resist that one!) He’s enjoying being an imaginary policeman, pilot, engineer, sailor, mail carrier, and chef!
Your Child is the Star in this Book
Seeing B taking on the different occupations reminded me of a book that hasn’t been off the shelf in a while, Mirror, Mirror, What Will I Be? By Chris Inns. We picked this up at a discount store, but it’s always entertaining. There is a circle cut out of the center of each page, through which you can see a mirror on the back page. As your child looks in the mirror, her face becomes part of each character, including a cowboy, a rock star, a diver, a superhero, and an astronaut. Each is gender neutral, and facing pages have a cute rhyme about the character’s actions. This is a board book, and B enjoyed it as a baby simply because of the mirror inside. In fact, we took it for entertainment on car trips several times. As he developed the cognitive ability for fantasy play and recognized the characters more, he worked harder and making his reflection fit just right in the space for the face, and he enjoys the rhymes much more now too. Mirror, Mirror What Will I Be? is a great jumping off point for conversations about occupations and inspiration for pretend play.
Appropriate for babies, toddlers, preschoolers.
What are your favorite pretend games?
I’m linking up with What My Child is Reading this Week – check out some other good reads and link yours up too!
3 comments:
We play dollhouse! And some dress up! He looks so cute in that:O)
Even though we don't have kids yet we have a hat box for our our friends of all ages. And they are used by everyone from 2-70 years old.
This looks like a great book! Despite her new love of Fancy Nancy, Anna is really not into dress-up. Her favorite pretend games are chasing games or hosting birthday parties galore for her favorite stuffed animals. She also likes to travel, especially to pack for travel.
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