Babs recently received some safari animals for her 2nd birthday. We decided to make what I call an animal playscape. She is always creating “homes” for her animals using 
blocks, pillows, cups….pretty much anything she can get her hands on. I love her creativity! However, I noticed she tended to just have the animals hide in their “home” and then she would move on to a different activity. I wanted to use a container that had a lid so we could use it for multiple days without our cat destroying it. So I ended up buying one of those bins used for under the bed storage. It worked perfectly! We then spent some time outside collecting different items from the yard. Babs thought this was cool. It was like a backyard scavenger hunt! I gathered some sand from the sand box and we used that as the ground. To make the lake we used a Frisbee, however, any shallow dish that will hold water would work great. We made the cave using a Solo cup and some rocks from the yard.
We played with it together for about 45 minutes!
She loved it….and I loved it because we could just put the lid on and clean up was done! This activity is a great way to encourage more detailed pretend play. She has continued to play with it independently for about two weeks now. By independently I mean I am in the same room for supervision but usually doing one of the many household chores that need to get done on a daily basis. Probably folding laundry…..ughh. Hope your little one’s like this activity as much as we did!
Materials Needed
Under the bed storage bin
Toy animals…safari, farm, anything will work
Plastic cup
Frisbee or shallow dish
Natural materials from the backyard
- Sand or dirt
- leaves
- rocks
- sticks
- acorns
- grass
- pretty much anything else you can think of!
Tiny Hands Big Ideas 