Fairy Playscape

I've been trying to get rid of a lot of our overly commercial toys the last several months. We have a plastic dollhouse that the kids haven't been very interested in. 

I have been thinking of a way to update it because I like how open and empty the dollhouse is. There is a lot of potential for creative play because there isn't much prescribed within the body of the house. After some thought I turned the house into a fairy house using natural materials like shells, rocks, and moss.

It took a very long time to hot glue the materials on the dollhouse, but the result was worth it! My daughter was thrilled when she saw it!

I was eager to capitalize on this interest, so I added a few props to enhance the play (fake grass, fabric flowers, large shells) and turned our sensory table into a fairy playscape.

The result? Hours of imaginative play! I'm eager to take this house outdoors into the garden when the flowers bloom and see how the play evolves as more natural elements from the yard and garden can be incorporated into the house.

My daughter decided to add a 'pool' for the fairies which was a shallow plastic bowl filled with water. It was interesting to add the water element to the playscape and created a whole new layer of exploration. The water drew her little brother in too!

Nothing like a dip in the pool to relax after a hard afternoon of imaginative play! My next goal is to encourage my daughter to design and create her own fairies using our art materials.

Fairy Dramascape

Inspired by an idea that one of our colleagues shared, we helped the children to create a fairy dramascape  in order to encourage imaginative dramatic play and cooperation, especially among our girls.

First the children transformed the little people in our fine motor toys center into fairies by using materials at the art center.

We gathered various items from around the room including shells, rocks, flowers, twigs, paper grass, and  salt dyed blue to be used as water.  The children spent much time engaged at the center, exploring the materials and having lots of adventures together.

When cleaning the center after the children had left I noticed that someone also made a few of our little toy animals into fairies too!