Role Play & Learning

The importance of role play.

Role play is an important part of growing up. It's how children learn to communicate, how they learn to relate to each other and the world around them. That's why it's so important, especially for Early Years and nursery-age children, to encourage healthy, imaginative play as much as possible.

Children learn important social
skills while they play.

The importance of role play is something that's now being acknowledged by UK teaching authorities; the three key pillars of the 2013 Early Years Foundation Stage framework are 'communication and language; physical; and personal, social and emotional development.'

Every one of these areas can be bolstered by including role play ideas in children's play time. And it's not hard to do! Given some simple tools, most children will naturally come up with their own imagined worlds, with their own rules and ideas to explore. All you have to do is provide them with the means to get creative!

Introducing our Early Years Kitchen Units.

At Red Monkey Play we recognise the importance of role play to children's learning and development. All of our Nursery and Early Years play products have been designed with children's imaginations in mind, and make great additions to a role play setting.

Our Kitchen Units make the perfect addition to any role play area.

These are the Kitchen Units, our latest Early Years role play products. Children love to play house - it's a way for them to learn to cooperate and empathise with one another, and just as importantly, it's plain old fun!

Our Kitchen Units are the perfect addition to an imaginary house set, providing three key features of the kitchen - a sink, an oven, and a washing machine. They're the perfect size for Early Years children, and are built from robust play-grade timber, so they can stand up to rough-and-tumble play sessions.

And in the true spirit of role play, our Kitchen Units don't have to be kitchen units at all - they can be the controls of a space ship, or machines in a laboratory, or treasure boxes at the bottom of the sea, or…or anything else you can imagine. I'm sure the children will be able to come up with better ideas than I ever could!

With role play, the only real limit is their imaginations!

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.