﻿Hello everybody. My name's Emma. And welcome to today's lesson. I'm really looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. But before we get started, just a quick reminder. We here Oak are trying to support any approaches you might already be using and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure, or have questions, then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team, or your child's school. In today's session, I'm going to be talking about Pretend Play. Together, we're going to do some thinking about why pretending in your play is so important. We'll have an opportunity for play, so we can start thinking about our pretend play skills. And then while we're playing, I'll be setting the adults some tasks, so that they can really help you to get the most out of this activity. So for today's lesson, you'll need Dolly or Teddy, some dress up codes, and then some play dough. If you don't have any play dough, I've got a recipe for you to make some at home. Adults, you'll also need some writing equipment and the downloadable resource available on the Oak website with this lesson. So before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson. Turn off any distractions or notifications that you might have running on the device that we're using for this lesson. And then make sure that both you and your adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking and thinking about pretend play. Pretend play follows a sequence. So far, we've covered the first two stages of the sequence. The first stage is object play. This is where children learn to explore and to use objects on themselves. The next stage is symbolic play. We did this in lesson four. This is where the child learns to relate objects to their toys, to act out every day events. The latest stages of pretend play include things like small world play or playing with miniatures, role play, and imaginative play. We're going to be focusing on the later stages of pretend play for this lesson. Pretend play needs to be fun, creative and spontaneous. As adults, we don't want to just teach pretend actions. We want to inspire them, to imagine, and think creatively. So our first activity is to try some pretend play with play dough. You'll need to make some play dough if you don't have it already. So here's the recipe. Pause the video if you need to make your play dough, or gather up the play dough that you have at home. when you're ready to continue, press play. So in order to start pretending with our play dough, we need to separate it into two balls. One ball for you, and one ball for your adult. Place one of balls in front of you, and then give the other to your adult. You'll also need some other objects, things like sticks, stones, buttons, or other fun materials that could be creative, while we're pretending with our play dough. Adults, you need to stop, look, and listen and let your child get on with playing with the play dough and the other objects in whatever way they want to. Whilst we're waiting, we need to really observe what the child does. This means no talking, no questions, or no directions. Let's see what the child does with their play dough. Let's see if they can start using some of the other objects and their play dough, to begin pretending. Pause the video here, to continue pretending with the play dough. Adults, this is your opportunity to stop, look and listen. Wait until your child has started playing with their play dough, and observe what it is they're doing. Once you've had five minutes or so playing with the play dough, press play to continue the video and we'll carry on with the rest of the lesson. Once the child has started showing some direction as to what they want to do with their play dough, then we can really start the fun. It's time to join in with your child. Using your own materials, once the child has done something with their play dough, you begin to follow their lead. You can do this by copying what they're doing. So pause the video here to continue with your play dough. Adults, let's copy the children and follow their lead. Press play when you're ready to continue with the lesson. We can extend pretending, by building on what our children are doing with their play dough, or any other pretend activity that we're working with. We can build on what they've done or said by offering some labels, and comments about what they're doing, or even adding something to their action. Here's an example. If the child rolls a ball, you could also copy this and roll a ball out of your own play dough. You could add on by saying, "Ooh, yummy apple!" And pretend to take a bite. You're still joining in with the fun, and following the child's lead. But you're building on what the child has started and adding a fun, new pretend idea. So using what we've just talked about, pause the video here to continue pretending with your play dough. Adults, follow the child's lead, and try adding on an action or a comment. Once you've had five or 10 minutes, press play to continue with the rest of the lesson. So before we continue, take a moment to reflect. Adults, did the children enjoy you joining in? Did they enjoy you adding to the play that they had already started? When a child can pretend play appropriately, it indicates that they're increasingly able to form new concepts in their minds. It indicates that the child's symbolic understanding can enable them to make links between different concepts in order to be able to solve problems. As children become more confident and skilled in their pretending, then we can begin to think about introducing role play. Children, it's time to have a little bit of role play. We're going to dress up and pretend. You can choose, what you dress up as and who you pretend to be. Adults, encourage the role play by dressing up with your child to reenact a favourite situation or story of theirs. Start with an experience that's highly familiar. It could be a TV show or even mommies and daddies. Try and make the costumes look like the characters, or add props which is symbolic and look as much like the real thing as possible. Have five or 10 minutes, trying out some role play. And then when you finished, come back to the video and press play to continue with the lesson. If we want to begin to extend a child's role play, we take these four steps. The first step would be to try and add more complex sequences to role play. More turns or more detailed narrative. The second step would be to involve more imagination. The third, you could begin to work on adding some emotional awareness of the characters in the role play. And then lastly, you could try and involve props or costumes that are more improvised. For example, a character could be played by Teddy or a sheet could become a dress. Continue to use the downloadable resource for more ideas on how to develop and extend your child's pretend play. Use the Adult Communication Strategies Checklist to help promote your child's engagement in play, and really get the most out of the interaction together. Don't forget to record and reflect on how your child engages and progresses with their pretend play over time. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson. A really big well done on all the fantastic pretending you've done today. I've just got two things I'd like you to do now. First adults, take a look back on the notes that you've made today, and identify a few important things. Second, if you're able to, please take a picture of some of the pretend play that you've been taking part in, or some of the toys that you've been pretending with. You could record this in your playtime diary, which is in the downloadable resources. Ask a parent or carer to share this diary with your teacher at school, so they could see the fantastic progress that you're making with your play skills too. And if you'd like, you could ask your parent or carer to send a picture of your play time record book to @OakNational on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, so I can see your fantastic progress too. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you. So take care and enjoy the rest of your learning today. Bye bye.

Child's symbolic understanding can enable them to make links between different concepts and solve practical problems

In this lesson, we will investigate pretend play.
It indicates that the child's symbolic understanding can enable them to make links between different concepts and solve practical problems.
This lesson provides advice and activities to support the development of pretend play.  Resources provided by University of Gloucestershire (CC BY-NC-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0)

Lesson overview:Pretend Play

Core Content

Equipment Required

Interaction and communication: