Small World Play: Dinosaurs!

Eden (3) LOVES small world play of every description. Not a single day passes without her playing with Tinkerbell figurines, or Strawberry Shortcake figurines, or Barbies, or Polly Pockets, and it's hard to explain how excited she gets when she enters a room to find a playscene waiting for her. Put it this way: she vibrates with excitement. No joke.
Most of our playscenes centre on characters such as Fairy Land, little Dolls at home, or an Arctic sensory tub, so a prehistoric dinosaur playscene was something of a departure from the norm for us. Eden had just 'won' a packet of dinosaurs (from our reward system) and she did not know what to do with them. Her first impulse was to make them 'doggies' for her Barbies! So, I created this Prehistoric playscene for her as an introduction to the world of dinosaurs.

Small World Play: Doll's House

My eldest darling daughter has been a tad on the sick side this week and although she's borne up like a trooper, I wanted to do something a bit special for her. This little project only took an hour total (with plenty of interruptions in there, too) and was made from bits and pieces I had on hand.
Eden loves dolls, doll houses, doll accessories... anything that could be considered 'small world play' and she's all over it! I knew she would appreciate it if I made a house for some of her little dolls (I purchased a pack while ago for $1).

My supplies

I began by turning the shoebox on it's side, with the attached lid lying open and towards me. I stuck some patterned scrapbook paper on three of the inside sides of the box bit to look like wallpaper and added some pictures cut from a home living magazine to be background furniture. To the fourth interior side I glued some felt, for the carpet.

Small World Play

I've been dying to do this for ages, but never seemed to remember until too late in the day. Introducing (drumroll please).... SMALL WORLD PLAY!


Take one tray of sand...

Lay out a tray with miscellaneous bits and bobs on it...

L to R, from top: shells, glow-in-the-dark bangles, pebbles, string of beads, leather scraps, wool scraps, ratten ball, fake greenery, coloured matchsticks, a shallow container filled with coloured rice, part of an egg carton, a lid from a pringles container, some bells, some icy-pole sticks