Imagination Station - Let's Play "Post Office!"

 

Our most popular Imagination Station thus far has been, hands-down, our Post Office! Let's take a look at some of our activities:

 

The Post Office (puppet theatre):



 

The Mail Bag and Envelopes:

Made of felt, obviously!

Do you recognize these from a Preschool Story Time post? We didn't want to ruin Miss Sue's set, so we made a second mail bag and envelopes to be played with.

 

Postcards and Stamps:

Although kids loved this activity, it did, unfortunately mean a lot of paper waste.

Don't forget to mail your postcards in the Mail Box!:

A hidden flap in the bottom so we could retrieve the mail! Miss Kristie's creation!

 

And who wouldn't want to drive the Mail Truck??:



Duct tape straps made this so easy to slip on and "drive" around!
(This truck has since been recycled into a school bus!)

Miscellaneous:

We had foam visors, which once said "Mail" in foam letters, but they kept falling off!
Miss Kristie also made those little mail boxes, which we placed around the room.  That way kids could deliver the mail around the neighborhood!

 

This was probably our messiest Imagination Station so far, because we were constantly cleaning up the papers and stamps, emptying the envelopes, rounding up all of the pieces and straightening up.  But it was also the most fun! Kids really enjoyed driving the truck, wearing the visors and mail bag, and leaving us mail in the big mail box!

 

Looking back, it's clear that children were able to practice at least four of the ECRR2 practices:

Reading - "mail" related books were on display

Writing - they wrote on postcards

Talking - that puppet theatre got A LOT of use

Playing - just look at all of these cool things to play with!

 

Feel free to borrow any of these ideas - we borrowed some of them, ourselves! And share with us any great ideas you've had for imaginative play!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Imagination Station - Let's Play "Veterinarian"!

Wow, it has been a busy summer! Our apologies for the lack of posts lately!

This summer Miss Kristie and I launched an exciting new play center called the "Imagination Station." In June the theme was a pretend 'library' - see our post about that here.

In July we shook things up a bit with a new theme - a Veterinarian's office!

Yes, those are felt letters, and yes, we were unscrambling them at the end of every day. Why is felt so tempting to little fingers?

This was surprisingly easy to throw together - we had a lot of the materials we needed already, and made the rest.  Here are some of the things we included:

-a lab coat and pretend glasses

-animal puppets and stuffed animals

-a pretend doctor's kit (I brought this in from home)

-animal x-rays (printed from Google Images and laminated)

-bandages

-a doctor's "prescription pad"

Here was our set-up. You can see we've only dedicated a small space to this play center, but it really works!

The table:

And the "waiting room," complete with magazines :o)

Why, hello, little Chipmunk. May I have the blood pressure cuff, please?

Miss Kristie made these "band-aids" out of - you guessed it - felt! They were perfect for sticking to our stuffed animals without the sticky mess of real band-aids.

X-rays are easy to find online, and are actually really interesting to look at:

And our laminator turned them green. No one seemed to notice.

Another felt creation - our doctor's bag actually got ripped apart after a week or two, but the kids continued to play with it. We were just too busy to fix it!

Doctor name tags and prescriptions (we went through a lot of these):

A little inspiration for the kids which they did NOT need! They went to town playing without any suggestions from us boring adults!

Here are some families checking out the new play center:

(and someone's big sister is wearing the lab coat!)

I found these prescriptions after some kids left one day:

1) Snowflake - eat lots of carrots

2) Mr. Owl - take medicine

3) Captain Jumpsalot - Take medicine twice a day,

before bed and after breakfast

Kids have such awesome imaginations! It has been so much fun to watch them play, especially when their parents and older siblings join in! Several times now I have heard a parent say, "Let's go play at the Imagination Station" [instead of playing on the computers], and their children excitedly say, "Okay!!" How great is that? Not only are we bringing ECRR2 more directly into our patrons' lives (one of the five practices is "play"), but we have really opened a door here. We have created a safe place for families to play together and to communicate with one another. And all it took was some felt, some toys, and a little imagination. :o)

Imagination Station! Let's Play "Library"!

Back in the spring, Miss Kristie and I attended a workshop about pretend play in the library, and we were inspired to create an Imagination Station in our own branch!

We worked hard to get it set up for the beginning of the summer reading program, and our theme for the month of June was "Let's play 'Library'!"  Miss Kristie made some super cute and eye-catching sign out of felt!

We commandeered a table in the children's area for our library "desk" and made a pretend computer out of a cardboard box. Our IT guys were kind enough to send us a box of old tech equipment, such as a wireless mouse and wireless keyboard, and we had a broken scanner that I cut the wire off of and covered the end in duct tape.

Every librarian needs a pair of glasses, obviously.

I made a sign for the kids, with ideas of what they could do at the 'library,' such as sort and check out books, make a library card, and recommend books for others.  I also made a sign for the parents, discussing why pretend play is so critical for developing young minds, and how it helps their emotional and social development.

Miss Kristie found these great pretend book spines from Deceptively Educational, which we printed off, laminated, and added call numbers and author's names. Our idea was that children could practice putting them in order, but these are often the books that they 'scan' and 'check out'!

Kristie also made some pretend library cards. They are just printed on cardstock so kids can take them or leave them.  We have some crayons and pencils sitting out so they can practice writing their names.

These are slips for book recommendations that children can leave in their favorite books.  Mostly, they just like to write their names on them. :o)

Here is our supervisor, Miss Ann, having some fun playing with some kids :o)

And this sweet girl is working hard on the computer!

People were a little hesitant at first, but the Imagination Station has really taken off! It has been wonderful to see children playing and pretending, especially when the adults join in! This is something we are eager to keep doing, and we're just about ready to change it out for the month of July.  Next month's play station will be a Veterinarian's office! Check back for details!