Imaginative Play: Australian Outback

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We are currently looking at the different biomes of Australia and Mavi wanted to recreate the Australian Outback at home.  As you all know, I started putting up small world, sensory tub  trays  for imaginative play this year.  It’s a favourite learning tool in the house and can engage both of my boys hours of play (and learning too!)! So to assemble our Australian Outback tub, I gathered some of our toys that have that “brownish” and “desert-ish”  look.  Mavi insisted that he should assemble it, and to my surprise it turned out so great!

Materials used:

brown kinetic sand

Playmobil Hyena

Playmobil Elixir Fairy

Desert Safari Toob

Safari Toob Down Under

Crafts tray (large)

I’m glad that Mavi can set this all up by himself. He loves putting together our small world trays (previously we made the Polar regions) for  them to enjoy.

This is how it looks like when he was done. I had to assist him in placing the animals, to make sure that the platypus and crocodile belongs to the water, and that the koala should be in a tree not in the desert. 

Vito loves this tree for some reason. He puts sand on it and enjoys watching it falling

In the morning, Vito automatically goes here and would start playing with the tray by identifying the figures.  If you set up something like this at home and have toddlers, make sure that they are always supervised.  He would also scoop the sand with his hand , good thing I’m using Kinetic Sand… so the the mess is pretty much controlable. 

I added a picture booklet beside the tray for Mavi to read whenever he plays with our tray.  This handy booklet contains information about Australia, a perfect reference while playing!

Benefits of small world play:

sensory

imaginative play

story telling

expanding vocabulary 

learning about different habitats

discovering the animals that lives in Australia

You can also check out some of our Australia Unit and learning materials:

• Australia Unit Part I
• Australia Unit Part II
• Australia/Oceania in a Nutshell
• Biomes of Australia (kindergarten)
• Aboriginal Arts
• 5 Activities to Learn about Australia

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