by Angela V 
As the fall approaches and the days get cooler we find ourselves playing inside the house more and more. We still take advantage of our backyard and do lots of activities outdoors but indoor play starts to become a part of our daily routine.
We recently organized the boys rooms and after switching my eldest son’s toddler bed to a twin bed we did some cleaning and ended up donating a few bags of old toys. We spent an entire day cleaning and sorting toys and we set up baskets for him to keep his favourite toys, the ones he uses the most, all organized in their own place. We now have a basket for his Hot Wheels cars, one for his building blocks, and one for pretend play costumes; we also have a few baskets for books and a big toy box with all of his other toys.
I found that spending the time to sort all of his toys and give them dedicated areas has been great help with keeping his room tidy. He can now take toys from one area to play with them and then put them away to play with something else.
We have all of his Hot Wheels racetracks set up in one area and he has lots of fun playing with them. I love that he can get creative when building the racetracks and he can play on his own or with his little brother. He also loves it when I help him set up his racetracks and when we race his cars together. Lots of fun for all!
How do you encourage your little ones to use their imagination when playing?
THE GIVEAWAY
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66 Comments on “Moving The Fun Playtime Indoors {Hot Wheels Giveaway}”
I always give my son lots of different toys and objects to encourage his imagination! 🙂 Thanks!
We have dress up time, reading time and I usually keep cardboard and let them go nuts decorating or cratering things .. Imaginations are wild!
my two middle boys would play (as still do occasionally still) “family”. They would be me and my husband. It was so cute. I would play along with them and encourage it. The younger of the two even had a baby at the midwife’s when I was pregnant and had my daughter.
He has lot of toys to choose from. My oldest loves to dress up and pretend. Like he has a little pirate ship he rides and he loves to wear his pirate costume and pretend he is a pirate. I also have an apron for when he plays in his kitchen. It makes him feel like he is a chef.
my son loves anything that has wheels. thanks for the post.
we encourage it by letting them play, letting them use their imagination. sometimes we pretend that we are on a train headed to BC. I am the driver and my niece is a passenger.
I sometimes give them an idea when they are playing or play with them for a bit .
We play with trucks and cars and he pretends he is just like his daddy 🙂
I encourage by providing them a wide assortment of toys that require the use of their imaginations. Blocks, legos, cars, crayons, playdoh and so on.
I take him to a parent and family literacy centre with lots of other kids, and he especially likes watching the older kids closely. At home he will copy what he learned there!
We always buy my nieces/nephews toys that make them use their imagination such as Lego’s, Barbies, Dress-Up clothes etc. Also do lots of crafts that allow their imagination to go wild!
I really don’t have to, it comes naturally for him!
Playing along of coarse.
With my tiny grandkids we are always talking about what if it had wings? or scales? or was purple? I try to open up their imagination that way!
we have a back room where we store everything we can recycle within reason and the grandkids use it for many things,building birdhouses,houses with cardboard crates,ornaments just now they have started working on some Halloween crafts
I ask lots of questions, and I’m always sure to add my own imaginary contributions to encourage them to do the same 🙂
We try to get them to think about things like …who lives here?….what kind of things do they like?….do they have a name?…
We sometimes make up our own ways to talk like singing everything or only using sign language to answer questions….
I ask them lots of ?’s and give them suggestions to work their imagainations!
I like to tell stories and have them tell their own back…
I play along with him and his imagination. He also had a baby in his tummy when I was pregnant with my daughter. Love the firestation bed. I hope I can organize their toys soon!
have lots of different toys for them available, creative things like Lego, blocks, even boxes.Lots of insturuments and microphones, play up clothes and accessories.
One thing I do that my kids love and it allows them to be very creative is have a recycling bin full of clean recyclables. I let my kids go craft crazy with it and they make robots, doll houses and even costumes.
We have costumes and I get right into it with them.
Lots of games and non electronic toys
My girl need little encouragement when it comes to her imagination! She’s very creative! We have a great selection of toys at home, but you can never have enough Hotwheels!
My kids love pretend play. They love to set up a hospital and doctor up the stuffed animals. They also love dress up and being ninjas or power rangers.
I use to get all sorts of different clothing and my youngest would dress up as something different every other day. He had so much fun with that.
My grandson has a wonderful imagination and we encourage the development through reading books with him, watching educational shows, and participating in numerous sports.
I encourage them to think about who is involved, what they’re doing, where they’re going etc, make sure theres lots of clothes to dress up in, and toys that encourage imagination
My son has great imagination and plays pretend all the time. I encourage it by giving him appropriate toys and join him when he is playing.
We do lots of free play without any rules or restrictions.
We leave them alone! haha. We find if we just leave them they are more inclined to use their imagination and make up games and use the toys they have around them.
I encourage my son to use his imagination by letting him lead play time. He has such an imagination that it sometimes baffles my mind. He can take the simplest item and create a whole story.
I always found that Fisher Price toys lend to a whole lot of imagination, especially the ones for the sandpit. 🙂
We play pretend all the time.
He has a pretty good imagination and loves playing pretend. I always ask hypotheical questions to peak his imagination.
I encourage them by providing them with lots of stuff that will fuel their imagination. Lego’s and dress up clothes.
To be honest, I encourage them to use their imaginations by staying out of their play for the most part. I will play games and things like that with the kids, but I think parents should let kids figure some of their own ideas out too.
This would be great gor me the bigger kid.
I ask him to tell me a story, what the people are doing, or the things he is playing with
I try to make up a funny story or think of fun ways to play with my child’s which inspires him to think of new ways to play
I make sure that he gets ‘bored’. When there is nothing to do, suddenly his imagination starts to kick in. When he is bored he creates lots of different games and starts to play in a fantastic way.
I like to encourage them to make up a story and play it out. Sometimes I’ll play with them!
I buy toys for my grandchildren that are creative and provides hours of play.
My daughter has crazy imagination.
i encourage imagination as much as possible. they like to pretend they are superheroes
Without a TV or computer.
I encourage them to use their imagination whether its making up stories or building things with blocks
I loved to have a dress up box for them. The imagination runs wild with that.
When I buy the a toy, I don’t necessarily buy them all the parts that go with it. They might need to come up with characters or cars from somewhere else. Or, I buy the characters and they need to create the house.
My son is in LOVE with Hot Wheels and he’s asked for this set for his birthday. Fingers crossed.
Besos, Sarah
Journeys of The Zoo
We make up a lot of games & stories!
Lots of outdoor play!
I love to use building blocks so my boys can use their imagination to create homes and sky scrapers!
my son likes playdoh
My girls have fantastic imaginations but I encourage it by ensuring they have lots of toys that use imagination, their favourites are small characters, dolls, etc.
I encourage my kids to use their imagination with drawing, creating art projects and creating music
It doesn’t take much to encourage kids to imagine! We mostly encourage it by not discouraging it. My girls spend a lot of time playing imaginative games. We read to them a lot and join their games and I guess that helps imagination.
I play along with them … we pretend to be cooks teachers doctors nurses … whatever they want to be !
Lots of fort building adventures!
We encourage them to make up towns, villages, cities with all different feature spots!
I always encourage my kids to create they own ‘things’ from robots, to cars to building whenever they are drawing, building with lego or playdoh!
I encourage my little one to use her imagination by allowing her to play by herself.
We play games, sing silly songs and tell fun stories.
I encourage my children’s imagination while playing by leaving them to entertain themselves while I watch from a distance, we have limited toys for a our kids that encourage imagination – play kitchen, dress up, scarves, and a great large yard on a ravine which the kids love to hunt for faeries in.
Lately it’s been all about making and eating pretend food.
I just let them do what comes naturally and play along.