Thought I’d share what’s currently on our playshelf since it’s been awhile that I’ve done one and we’ve changed things up a bit since our last one (click here to see all our previous setups).
I rotate the items on our shelf more often than these shelfie posts I do and the reason why I don’t do them more often is a very shallow one which I’m not TOO embarrassed to share haha. Our playroom faces the street so there’s usually a thick curtain over these translucent ones which we draw shut at the end of the day to prevent people from peering in. So the reason why I don’t do these posts more often is because I don’t like having the curtain as the backdrop for these shelfie posts so I always take them down for a picture only to put them up again, and it’s just more of a hassle these days being pregnant and all 😆. So there, #keepingitreal.
Besides what we’ve got on the shelf, I usually put our larger sets of play items on the play mat (usually construction toys or items the girls return to several times a day) to make it easier for the girls to access them for play. So currently on the mat, we’ve got our well-loved Playmags, natural wooden blocks from Zart Art and ALL our animal figurines in that mint-coloured fabric box as adding animals to play is a massive interest in both girls’ play at the moment.
The Playshelf
Miss 2’s imagination is seeing exponential growth these days and a massive interest of hers lately is creating various imaginary small worlds and so this particular rotation has been mostly about providing resources and materials that will enable/ inspire her to create whatever small world she has in mind or is inspired to create.
So far she has created various amazing small worlds with almost every single item of what’s currently on our shelf, as well as those bigger items on our play mat as mentioned above. They include our rainbow pebbles, Sarah’s Silks, Grapat Seasons Autumn set, Grimms pastel rainbow and Grimms natural stacking house which are all available from The Creative Toy Shop, the felt fairies and gorgeous felt trees from Invitation to Play, the crochet loose parts from The Yawning Yarn, our DIY coloured peg dolls, duplo etc
There’s always a shelf of books for both girls, and most of the current books in this rotation that are specifically chosen for Miss 2 inspire a lot of those small world play which I might share in another post.
While these materials were largely chosen for their value in creating small worlds in this particular rotation, the beauty of these open-ended resources is that both girls end up using ALL of these items in so many different ways.
Take this set of rainbow felt bowls and rainbow pebbles currently on our play shelf for instance. The 2yo uses them both together for colour sorting, as well as separately as loose parts for creating small worlds and for construction play. My 1yo on the other hand uses them together for filling and transferring and lately she’s started to show some very simple imaginative play like pretending the pebbles are play food, putting them in the bowls and pretending to feed me and herself out of them using a spoon.
Finally, even though both girls play with all of the things on the current shelf in their own ways, I intentionally set up a shelf specifically just for Miss 1 as she’s got quite specific developmental interests at the moment, that of posting activities, so the third shelf on the bottom is dedicated to her. And that’s about it for this rotation 🙂
Grimms Rainbow, Grimms Natural Stacking House, Grapat Seasons Autumn Set, Mirror Blocks, Rainbow Blocks, Rainbow pebbles, Playmags, Wooden Magnetic Earth Tiles: The Creative Toy Shop
Crochet Loose Parts: The Yawning Yarn
Natural Wooden Blocks: Zart Art
Wooden Felt Trees, Felt Fairies: Invitation to Play
Rainbow Felt Bowls: Awe and Wonder
Rainbow Peg Dolls: DIY
