Enabling Environments: Let's explore ... dolls and dolls' houses

Psychologists often divide play into several categories - object play (playing with objects such as building blocks, dolls and cars); pretend play (pretending a block is a mobile phone, for example); socio-dramatic play (acting out a story and taking different roles); language play (exploring words); and physical play (running, jumping and climbing). All of these types of play are important for different reasons. The key is variety. The wonderful thing about dolls and doll play is that it tends to incorporate all of these modes of play.

Most home corners include some dolls, but these, along with other resources, can take a lot of time to maintain and can sometimes become a little uncared for. If the home corner contains a grubby doll with one leg and no clothes and another with a broken eye, some plastic plates, a microwave and a teapot, don't be surprised if a lot of the role play involves the baby getting cooked!

When groups of children are showing an interest in doll play in the home corner, consider offering opportunities for them to extend their play across other areas of provision. Of course, individual children may have developed an interest in houses and dolls' houses because they have moved home, or in dolls because they have a real new baby at home. Significant life changes like these often make more sense to children if they have opportunities to explore them through imaginative or role play.

ROLE-PLAY AREA

Develop the home corner area by adding: assorted dolls, doll's clothes, washing line, pegs, cradle, cot, nappies, feeding cups, bowls, bottles, car seat, carrying chair.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Developing growing awareness of the needs of others
Using language to recreate roles and experiences
Showing curiosity, observing and manipulating objects
Moving in a range of ways
Using imagination in role play

ADULT ROLE

- Support children as they explore the resources.

- Observe, and where appropriate, extend children's imaginative role play.

- Model the use of specific resources and act 'in role' - for example, as a health visitor or parent.

- Ask open-ended questions that encourage the use of imaginative and descriptive language.

- Encourage children to add additional resources or use equipment in creative ways to support their play.

CONSTRUCTION AREA

Add: images of assorted homes and houses, 'for sale' and 'sold' signs, lorries and vans, plastic and wooden furniture, wooden and cloth people, small construction blocks, cardboard boxes, clipboards and markers.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Making links with earlier experiences
Talking for a variety of purposes
Constructing with a purpose in mind
Demonstrating increasing skill in the use of blocks and construction
sets
Playing co-operatively as part of a group to act out a narrative

ADULT ROLE

- Encourage the children to make comparisons and notice similarities and differences.

- Introduce the language of measures - bigger than, smaller than.

- Support children as they design and make houses.

SMALL-WORLD PLAY AREA

Add: plastic, wooden and cloth dolls, assorted doll's house furniture, carpet, lino, fabric and wallpaper samples, images of homes, houses, rooms and furniture, squared paper, clipboards and markers.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Showing care and concern for others
Initiating conversations
In practical activities, beginning to use the vocabulary involved in
comparisons, position, shape and pattern
Making connections between the small-world provision and events in their
own lives and those of familiar others
Expressing creativity through imaginative play

ADULT ROLE

- Encourage the children to explore the resources and develop different environments for the dolls.

- Ask questions that extend children's play.

- Promote the children's discussions about furniture and furnishings they have seen before.

- Support the children as they retell and adapt familiar stories and develop imaginative play themes.

PROBLEM SOLVING, REASONING AND NUMERACY AREA

Add: several dolls of different sizes with matching clothes that fit each.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Displaying high levels of involvement in activities
Taking turns in conversations
Extending vocabulary
Using the language of size
Using mathematical ideas and methods to solve practical problems
Handling objects with increasing skill

ADULT ROLE

- Observe children, noting significant achievements.

- Encourage the children to explore the resources - what is the same about them, and what is different?

- Support children's conversations, encouraging them to make connections with earlier or home experiences - what dolls do they have at home? What clothes do they like best?

- Observe and, where appropriate, extend children's play.

- Promote children's autonomy through the independent use of resources.

CREATIVE WORKSHOP

Add: assorted cardboard boxes, shoe boxes, wallpaper, furniture catalogues, assorted dolls furniture, wallpaper, colour charts, story box of small-world house play, books about dolls' houses.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Talking freely about their home and community
Interacting with others, negotiating plans and activities and taking
turns in conversation
Talking about what is seen and what is happening
Showing an interest in the world in which they live
Choosing particular colours to use for a purpose

ADULT ROLE

- Support children's conversations, encouraging them to communicate what they are doing and why.

- Model explanations for children to help them expand what they are saying.

- Promote children's conversations about homes.

- Encourage the children to recall earlier story box play.

- Support children as they design and make their own story box or make a lounge/bedroom/kitchen for dolls.

MUSIC AND SOUND-MAKING AREA

Add: ten different dolls, wooden numerals, magnetic numerals and magnetic board/wedge, a wooden bed or bed made from a cardboard box, CD player and CD including 'Ten in a Bed', book of Ten in a Bed (see Book Box, right).

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Working as part of a group, co-operating and negotiating
Retelling and creating own songs and rhymes using props
Exploring books
Exploring numbers
Using imagination in stories

ADULT ROLE

- Support the children as they retell familiar rhymes and songs.

- Ask questions about what the children are doing and why.

- Support children as they explore the language of size and number.

- Support the children as they play with language, develop the song/rhyme and act it out physically.

There were ten in the bed and the little one said, 'Roll over, roll over'

So they all rolled over and one fell out

There was one in the bed and the biggest (tallest, smallest, baby) one said,

'Jump over/hop over/fly over/wriggle over/slither over/etc.

OUTDOOR AREA

It's really important that outdoor play isn't a repetition of what goes on indoors - in general it, should extend learning and offer opportunities for children to work on a larger, noisier or messier scale or explore the natural or built environment.

Many settings may already have an outdoor 'house' area. If there isn't one, considering developing an outdoor 'den' made from a climbing frame and blankets, or huge empty cardboard boxes. Support the children as they develop their own 'house' or 'houses'.

Whether it is a temporary or permanent outdoor house, extend the children's play by adding resources to support:

- play about decorating - builder's buckets filled with water, decorator's brushes, empty paint pots, colour charts;

- play about moving house - 'sold' sign, packing boxes, packing, newspaper, furniture, home corner equipment, curtains, bed, bedding, 'new home' cards;

- play about a new baby in a house - dolls, doll's clothes, cradle, buggies, bottles, nappies, 'new baby' cards.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Expressing needs and feelings in appropriate ways
Initiating conversations and taking account of what other people say
Using positional and comparative language
Examining objects and finding out more about them
Using a range of small and large equipment

ADULT ROLE

- Support children as they explore the resources.

- Observe and extend children's imaginative role play.

- Model the use of specific resources and act 'in role' as a painter or someone who is moving house.

- Ask open-ended questions that encourage the use of imaginative and descriptive language.

- Model the use of specific vocabulary about feelings.

- Encourage children to add resources or use equipment in creative ways to support their play.

RESOURCE BOX - ROLE PLAY

Collecting role-play resource boxes around predictable early childhood interests will ensure that practitioners are well equipped to respond when children show an interest for a particular topic. Such resource boxes can be added to whenever new items become available. It's always a good idea to have a list of the resources in the box, originals, where they came from and a reference to anything stored on a computer - for example, writing frameworks. To support children's play themes on houses, consider providing:

- old telephones/mobiles
- PC monitor and keyboard
- estate agent details
- 'for sale' and 'sold' signs
- 'open' and 'closed' signs
- writing frameworks for 'House for Sale'
- clock
- diary/calendar
- appointment pad
- images of homes
- tape measures
- furniture catalogues
- buckets and decorator's brushes.

EXPLORING CHILDREN'S INTERESTS

Tuning in

Making opportunities to talk to parents and carers is an important way of finding out about children's current interests and about what matters to them. Such information helps practitioners provide a curriculum that is relevant and meaningful.

Having an existing interest in a particular theme means that children approach it with interest and expertise, giving them confidence and increased motivation to engage in the activities provided.

Children can use this expertise best in carefully planned, open-ended learning opportunities without prescribed uniform outcomes.

Continuous provision

Any significant interest that a child or children may have should be explored by enhancing a setting's continuous provision - that is, by adding theme-based resources to the main areas of quality provision, which can deliver the learning outcomes expected under the EYFS.

By taking this approach, children can choose to engage with the theme or pursue their own interests and learning independently.

The areas of continuous provision should be:
- Role play
- Small-world play
- Construction play
- Sand and water
- Malleable materials
- Creative workshop area
- Graphics area
- Book area

ADULT ROLE

If children's interests are to be used to create the best possible learning opportunities, the adult role is crucial.

Adults need to be able to:

- enhance continuous provision to reflect children's interests

- use enhancements to plan meaningful learning opportunities across all areas of the EYFS

- know when to intervene in children's play and when to stand back

- recognise that children will need a suitable length of time to explore any area of provision to develop their own ideas

- models skills, language and behaviours

- recognise how observation, assessment and reflection upon children's play can enhance their understanding of what young children know and should inform their future planning.

AREAS OF LEARNING
Personal, social and emotional development
Communication, language and literacy
Problem-solving, reasoning and numeracy
Knowledge and understanding of the world
Physical development
Creative development

A HISTORY OF DOLLS

2000BC - Excavations of Egyptian graves have revealed dolls made of flat pieces of painted wood, with hair of strings of clay or wooden beads

C16th - Primitive wooden stump dolls are played with by children in England

1800s - Dolls begin to be made from pulped wood or paper moulded under pressure, which signalled the beginning of mass production

1840s - The emergence of the china doll - most represented women dressed in the latest fashions

1850s - Rag dolls introduced in US and England. A French doll called Bebe set a trend by depicting young girls rather than adults

1950s - Doll makers began experimenting with vinyl. Dolls now had hair rooted to their heads, rather than painted-on hair or wigs

1959 - The Barbie doll was invented by Ruth Handler (co-founder of Mattel), whose own daughter was called Barbara. It was intended to be a teenage fashion doll. The Ken doll was named after Ruth's son.

- For more information see: www.dollreference.com

BOOK BOX

There are some great storybooks and information texts available about dolls and dolls' houses. Remember to use the local library and encourage families and members of the local community to share books.

Rose's Dolls House by Roger Priddy (Let's Pretend; Priddy Books): A fold-out book that opens out into a doll's house, with stickers, furniture and characters that can all be moved around the house.

Miss Polly Had a Dolly, illustrated by Liz Pichon (Ladybird Books): A book of the well-known rhyme.

That's Not My Dolly written by Fiona Watt and illustrated by Rachel Wells (Usborne Publishing): A durable, colourful book about a child's most cherished friend - her doll.

How Raggedy Ann Got Her Candy Heart adapted by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Jan Palmer (Simon & Schuster): One day Raggedy Ann takes a kite ride way up into the sky and ends up in a bucket of paint! A friendly painter offers to fix her, and she returns better than ever - with a special gift.

Ten in the Bed by Penny Dale (Walker Books): With ten in the bed, it's a bit of a squeeze! Roll over, roll over! But the little one gets cold all alone, and soon all ten are snuggled up and fast asleep.

One to Ten and Back Again written by Sue Heap and illustrated by Nick Sharratt (Puffin Books): A counting book about friendship, featuring Sue and Nick, who like very different things but are still best friends. They introduce us to all their favourite things from one boy called Nick and one girl called Sue to ten cakes for tea.

The Magic Bed by John Burningham (Red Fox): Each night Georgie says the magic word and it whisks him away on a fantastic adventure, but then he returns from holiday to find his bed has gone.

The Berenstain Bears' Moving Day by Stan and Jan Berenstain (Berenstain Bears First Time Books, Random House): The Bear family decide it is time to move to a larger house.

Big Ernie's New Home: A Story for Children Who Are Moving by Teresa and Whitney Martin (Magination Press): This book can help young children understand the sadness, anger and anxiety they may feel on moving house and the comforts and exciting adventures that will come with a new home.

Moving House by Rebecca Hunter (First Times; Evans Brothers); Moving House by Anna Civardi (First Experiences, Usbourne Publishing): Two informative non-fiction titles with helpful pictures.