This term we have been developing a new home corner for our children.  The home corner is now filled with real items for the children to play with and we are no longer using plastic ‘pretend’ toys. The idea behind this is to go back to a more traditional approach to pretend/role play. This encourages their imagination without them being directed in their play by the toys and dressing up outfits. It is called the Curiosity Approach.  The Curiosity Approach aims to create ‘thinkers & doers’ by putting the child at the centre of their own development and education.

Our home corner is now filled with items we have found in charity shops and from our own homes. There are adult sized clothes for dressing up, which the children can put on more easily themselves and this is developing their independence.  We are also using dried pasta and beans for the children to cook with, enabling them use their imagination to decide what they are cooking.  We also have an adult in the home corner with the children for most of the free play sessions throughout our day.  Modelling dressing up, pouring tea and cooking.

The new home corner has been a great success.  We have noticed it gets used more than our old home corner and it is a much more language rich environment.  The children are chatting both to the adults and to each other and therefore developing both their use of and understanding of language.  We intend to continue developing our home corner throughout the rest of the school year to make it even bigger and better!