Make your own small world

Create your own imaginative world using items from nature

Small world play encourages creativity and emotional development because a child’s world will be unique to them.

Small world play can support children’s awareness of others – developing empathy and increasing levels of understanding and tolerance. When children create their own small world scene, it’s a perfect way to celebrate creativity.

In this video, LEYF’s pre-school room leader, Marcella, will be showing parents and pre-school children the items they will need to create their very own natural small world scene at home.

What to do

Collect together a series of natural materials. You could try fresh flowers, sand, soil, stones, water and cabbage. Create a natural scene inside a cardboard box. The cabbages and flowers could be trees and the water could be a lake or oasis.

You could add any toy animals or dinosaurs you have at home so that children can have fun helping the animals to interact with their own world. Children could also make their own animals or insects for their small world by painting pebbles.

If children get bored of the small world they have created, they can create a new world using the same natural materials.