Imaginative Play Ideas: An Undersea Adventure
Kids love to pretend and role play, and they can be absorbed in their little stories sometimes for hours at a time. It's an important part of their learning and development; it helps them make sense of their world, understand relationships, communicate their thoughts and feelings, and discover new interests. It’s also great for us as parents to watch and take part in!
Here at Rainbows and Clover we are big believers in imaginative play, so to help your little one’s imagination run wild, we thought we’d share some ideas on creating an undersea adventure! With so many different animals, colours and storylines to explore you’ll have a hard time pulling them away!
Start with a blue cellophane sea
Blue cellophane makes a great sea and the texture is perfect for little hands to play with, the sound is also bound to bring smiles. Smooth it out for a large ocean, crinkle it to make waves or cut it up into layers for a deeper sea level effect.
Create an underwater world with an ocean floor mat
With seaweed, rocks and a cave to hide treasures in, our Ocean Floor felt mat can be the base of many different exciting adventures. Sea animals, mermaids, pirates or other toys can swim into the cave, play hide and seek in the seaweed, and even dive around to find secret buried treasure!
Add mermaids
What underwater adventure is complete without mermaids? Coming in sets of two our Felt Mermaids are soft, thick and spongy, yet robust too. Have them sunbake on the rocks, set up a secret kingdom under the sea, or have swimming races with other sea creatures. Coming with a little hook on their back, they can easily be hung on your child’s fingers to pretend they are quickly swimming through the sea, or on an underwater scene to make it look like they are bobbing in the water.
Get some coloured glass stones
Glass stones are a great way to make the seascape colourful - and they make great buried treasure! With so many different colours to choose from, you can customise the scene however you choose.
Guard the shore with river rocks
Our magical felt River Stones (pebbles) are perfect for the bottom of the ocean floor, guarding the shoreline or even creating a rock pool for sea creatures.
Pipe cleaner coral
Pipe cleaners make great coral creations. Choose lots of different colours and twist them around to make all different shapes of coral. It’s a great way to make any seascape a welcoming and eye-catching play area.
Make your own sea creatures
Why not encourage your child to make some sea animals to go along with their underwater world? Think fish, starfish, dolphins or sharks. Set them up with card, paper, sequins for scales, felt pens or crayons and glitter (if you are game!). An egg carton and streamers make for a great jellyfish!
Do you have any ideas to add? We’d love to hear them!
