Hi friends!
My first bits of nesting instinct have kicked in. Paige has new goals with her therapists and it inspired me to reorganize her playroom to suit them. I love the changes!
She had a book nook in the corner of the room that we moved out of there and into our family room. She is always so busy playing in the room that she never takes as much interest in the books there. And it took up a lot of space. Now that the book sling and cushion are in the family room, Paige can be found over there reading through all her books aloud and participating in quiet play with her animals and dollhouse. It's much more harmonious and peaceful.
Her play kitchen had been in our family room (we tried to encourage her to use it there to no real avail), so we moved it into the playroom where the book nook was. We moved her table and chairs to the center of the floor in front of the play kitchen to encourage her to "cook" and create tea parties.
The blue bookcase used to hold all of Paige's musical instruments. She just tossed them onto shelves and it didn't make much sense organizationally. So, I put them into a basket on the toy shelf unit and am now using the shelves for all the play kitchen food, utensils, baking materials, etc. All of the kitchen-related items are together in the corner and she's already played with it a bunch of times in one day! Now, she is ready to learn about sequencing and extending her pretend-play story lines to include "filling the teapot" and "setting the table" and "pouring the tea into the cups" and "giving cookies to her guests." You know the drill. For language, she is working on prepositions (in, next to, under, on, below, etc.) and number concepts (a few, many, most of, some of, all of) and we can work on this with the tea party theme too. I will even put napkins in the area for her to work on her folding skills. These are all skills that will transfer over well in social situations with other children when the time comes; AND they are skills that can transfer over to "real life" in the home at dinner time. We're excited!
4 comments :
Looks amazing! You're obviously doing a fantastic job try to encourage and support Paige's development.
Quick question, how do you like the Ikea kitchen set? I was thinking of buying one for my daughter, but am a little worried about the quality.
Thanks Amber! :) We actually love the kitchen set. I'm impressed by the quality; it is just like other wooden kitchens out there. People who come over and see it/play with it with their kiddos are always surprised it's Ikea and say that it's "really nice." I like that the burners on it light up when you press the buttons. It is height adjustable (2 or 3 heights; I can't fully remember). The magnets that hold the cabinets together are very strong (I even had to kind of cover them with masking tape to make them easier to open...when she is older I'll remove the tape). We also love the microwave feature since that is what she mimics most...I tend to use the microwave most in the house! LOL. Anyway, we've never had any trouble with it.
I love the changes, especially the reading corner.
To Amber: I also have the kitchen and it is GREAT. All the kids who come to our house love it and the parents too!
wow!! that's an awesome playroom. i hope to be able to do something like that for my little one...one day!
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