Imagination…
Aside from the fact that it offers children the chance to identify and learn about the adult world, it also supports the development of essential skills such as sharing, turn taking and the ability to negotiate.
A child’s emotional development stems from how they interact with and come to perceive the world around them, and imaginative play is one of the key ways in which we are able to facilitate that. In truth, imaginative play provides children with the opportunity to make sense of their world. It offers them the chance to act out what they perceive to be the adult world; supporting the developing of those vital social skills that we so heavily rely on in later life.
For us grown ups, it can be easy to underestimate the importance of imaginative play, or simply just forget how much we used imaginative play as children ourselves… there was a time when we too were playing with our train sets or dressing up our dollies. From small world play at a very young age, to experimenting with dressing up in our parents clothes and shoes as we grew a little older – imaginative play is always there, and an integral part of our development, both creatively and emotionally. There is now overwhelming research to suggest that creativity and creative learning, is closely linked to an increase in academic performance too!
To be creative is to exercise the brain, to think logically, to problem solve and become increasingly in touch with English language, sensory experiences as well as developing a further connection with space and time. Alongside this, there is a reason children are naturally inclined to want to learn through play; their brains are always developing and making vital connections, and play of this kind facilitates those connections, shaping them in to the adults they will one day become.
Fortunately, there is now a Harrogate Children’s Play Centre that accommodates all of this and more, a place where imagination is at the epicentre of their play experience, and where children quite literally find themselves in a ‘world of their own’…
Currently featuring a realistic old ‘Wild West’ town, with authentic props and scenery to support childrens imaginative and creative development, World of Their Own is the UK’s first children’s play centre of its kind. Unlike ‘soft play’ or other more traditional play areas, it is a custom designed, play village, made with impeccable attention to detail, from the intricate double height sky lines painted on the walls floor to ceiling to the hand crafted scenery throughout.
At ‘World of Their Own’ children can touch a seemingly real cactus and not be prickled, be locked in the old town jail but find the secret escape, travel through tunnels but pretend that they’re actually being transported to a new place and time, develop their hand-eye coordination and gross motor skills by knocking over stacks of cans with beanbags, feed horses in the stable and ride them too!
It is an undeniably magical experience, and one that inspires ore and wonder at every visit!
To book onto a YEEEEHAH worthy play session or choose from one of our fabulous parties then just follow this link.
