Benefits of Children’s Role Play Centres for EYFS

In our Construction Site we provide foam bricks for building walls and stacking bricks to build a tower. Children can use blocks to build a tower to enhance their balancing skills and physical development.

A range of construction toys of different sizes, made of wood, rubber and plastic that fix together in a variety of different ways e.g. pulling, twisting, slotting, magnetism. Children can role-play as a builder in a builders yard, using the hard helmets, hi-vis vests and tool belts. This encourages narratives to do with building and mending, allowing children to understand real-life situations and the world around them.

Babies and toddlers will be learning to use large and fine motor skills to do things independently, for example, manage buttons and zips. In our Tiny Town Play Centre we have a dressing up rail with clothes such a dresses that go over the head, outfits with zips, velcro and buttons to enhance their physical development.

Children can demonstrate zipping/unzipping coats, putting on/fastening shoes with velcro, putting on hats/scarves etc. Once finished with their dressing up item, children can use the hangers to hang their clothes back on the rail. Our Theatre provides a stimulus for imagination by having atmospheric features such as the stage, a mirror, colourful spotlights and red curtains to suggest a stage set. Instruments and dressing-up materials such as crowns, hats, wands are also available to stimulate imaginative play.

Our Forest Area is specially designed with little ones in mind. We have treasure baskets filled with bright and colourful sensory toys that enhance your baby’s physical, cognitive and social development. Sensory toys of different shapes and materials for babies to explore, stimulating touch and all the senses. Young babies and children will be crawling, rolling/laying in the floor, which is why we provide large, soft pillows, cushioned rugs and mats and woodland-themed teddies.

Children can develop their communication and language by using the musical instruments and different toys to make and explore different sounds. Toddlers will be learning to use all their senses in hands-on exploration of natural materials. We have a collection of natural materials such as wooden logs and bark, different types of leaves, pebbles and rocks so children can explore and understand the world around them. Children can engage in story times with our woodland theme books, to enhance their communication and language skills.

Toddlers will begin to organise and categorise objects to enhance their mathematics skills. Our role-play Post Office is equipped with letters that can be sorted into the wooden shelves and delivered to each area. Each letter has a coloured shape that corresponds to each area, and then can be delivered once matched up. Children can sort, order and count in their play.

Young children will be learning to identify and describe people who are familiar to them and people in their community. Children can demonstrate this by role-play pretending to become a post person in the Post Office.

Babies and young children will be learning to explore natural materials. In our Beach area, we have treasure baskets filled with shells of different shapes and sizes. Children can explore the different textures and surfaces of each shell and compare how the look and feel, enhancing their different senses.

Communication and language can be further developed by the different beach and sea themed books we have, sparking conversation about real places they may have visited before e.g. the beach. Sea-life figurines can be used to stimulate their imaginative play while also learning about the different kinds of animals that live in the sea; understanding the world around them.

Children will be learning to develop their fine motor skills so that they can use a range of tools competently, safely and confidently. Our Café has plastic knives, forks and spoons that can be gripped by small hands, this will improve a child’s physical development. Small tables and chairs are also available in the café, helping children to use their core muscle strength to achieve a good posture, further adding to their physical development.

Children can engage in role-play in the café area by wearing the apron and chef outfit, they will show a desire to dress and undress themselves independently and hang their outfits on the hooks when they’re finished. Children can use the scales and kitchen tools to weigh and measure ingredients, while this stimulates their imaginative play it also enhances their mathematics skills.

Toddlers will be leaning to name and describe people who are familiar to them. In pretend play, children can talk about the role of a police officer within their community. Communication and language skills can be used while engaging in role-play in our police Station. Children can put on the prisoner and officer outfits and stimulate imaginative play by ‘interrogating the prisoner’, engaging in conversations that are similar to real-world situations.

Children will be learning to develop the overall body strength, co-ordination, balance and agility. This physical development can be enhanced with our wheeled police bikes for the children to balance, sit on, ride on and pull/push.

In pretend-play, children will imitate everyday actions and events from their own family. This can include things such as ‘making and drinking tea’, ‘serving food to the table’. In our House we provide a variety of familiar resources reflecting everyday life such as telephones, pots and pans, plates and cups and kitchen utensils. This helps associate a sequence of actions with daily routines, encouraging children to understand real-life domestic tasks, similar to those in the real world. The small set of table and chairs helps children to use their core strength to achieve a good posture, enhancing their physical development. There are toys provided that children can use to imitate daily tasks that also help with physical development such as a brush for sweeping, hoover for pushing around the floor, jugs for pouring.

Young children will be learning to understand the key features of the life cycle of a plant and begin to understand the need to respect and care for the natural environment and all living things. Books such as ‘Flowers and Plants’ and ‘Garden sounds’ are available in our garden area so children can learn about plants, flowers and insects; part of the ‘Understanding the World’ part of EYFS.

Communication and language is developed as children can engage in conversations about the importance of plants and flowers. Toddlers can develop their fine motor skills by grabbing and holding the gardening tools and watering cans. Small wheelbarrows and lawnmowers can be used to develop a baby’s physical development. They can use the low-level equipment to hold themselves up, pull themselves to a standing position, shuffle or walk with the wheelbarrow in front of them.

Babies, toddlers and young children will be learning to combine objects like stacking things and putting objects inside others and taking them out again. In our Mini Market Shop, children can group the tinned fruit and vegetables into three and stack up them together on the shelves. Toddlers can be encouraged to play with a wide variety of interestingly shaped toys like vegetables, sorting them and putting them into different baskets based on their colours, building a child’s mathematical skills.

Baskets and shopping bags can be used to put the shopping in and take the shopping out. Children in reception will be learning to compare numbers. Using vocabulary such as ‘more than’, ‘less than’, ‘fewer’, ‘the same as’ to distribute shopping items into baskets/bags etc. Children can use the pretend money in the shop till to ‘pay for their shopping items’ . Physical development can also take place in our Mini Market if children use the shopping trolleys to hold themselves up as they’re pushing it along, and shopping baskets for filling, carrying or emptying.

Physical development can be demonstrated in our Salon. Children will be learning to develop their fine motor skills so that they can use a range of tools competently, safely and confidently; in our Salon we have tools such as hair straighteners and hair brushes that can be gripped by little hands.

Children can participate in role-play and pretend to be a hairdresser or makeup artist, pretend to be a receptionist and make salon appointments with the telephone and keyboard; children will show an interest in toys with buttons and keys and simple mechanisms and begin to learn to operate them.

While engaging in pretend-play in the Vets, children can be encouraged to use different vocabulary relating to the occupation and use it during their play. Communication and language skills can be developed through pretend-play in the Vets, children can ‘feed the animals’ or ‘walk the dog’ for example. Children in reception will be learning to talk about their immediate family and friends.

You can encourage conversations about pets and looking after animals while children engage in role-play in our Vets. The animals teddies can be used to help children talk about feelings and ways to look after their pets. Tools that are typically found in a Vets, such as toy syringes, stethoscopes, thermometers can be used to develop a child’s motor skills as they grip, hold and push/pull to make them work.