Activities
Jumping/(running)/rolling/hopscotch
includes jumping with an elastic, jumping, roller skating, hopscotch stones, jumping on doll/man
Texts of play with the toys
- Try to see how many I can get.
- Competition with my big brother.
- Mum and Dad play with us sometimes. Mum is good at it.
- Roll on roller skates on the pavement and on the road.
- Mette (girl’s name) is very physically active and, amongst other things, goes to gymnastics. We practise on the lawn.
- On our street we have running competitions and we run when we play “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?”
Drawing/colouring/cutting out/sticking
Texts of play with the toys
- I write letters to my Granny and to other people, draw something, make masks and cut them out. I make Christmas decorations, paint pictures for hanging on the wall, paint stonesand shells from the seashore, draw on the paving stones, make pictures, paint in my colouring book, paint on material, make paper food, build houses, roads, etc.
- Anything can be used: colourful advertisements, magazines, empty kitchen rolls, small pieces she has cut off venetian blinds and she gives everything away.
- Louise “hides” small reserves of crayons all around the house so that she always has a crayon close at hand.
- Sit at the table and sing and draw. Talk to Mum and Dad or my friendswhile we are drawing and cutting out.
- Paint pictures with water-based colours and cut them out and make new pictures.
This form of play combined with hobby activities is particularly popular with girls aged 4-7 years, regardless of their family’s lifestyle.
Supplementary toys
- 6-10 year old girls drawing/colouring/cutting out/stickingplay/hobby activities in connection with supplementary toys:
Worthless items, rag doll, teddy bear, doll/dolls’ pushchair, household inventory, colouring books, compass/ruler, painting/water-based colours, books, swing/trapeze, Nature/outdoors play.
Tape cassette player - storyteller and music box
Texts describing play with the toys
- My daughter is apparently able to listen to a story, read a Donald Duck comic book, cut out dressing up dolls and eat an apple while talking to me - all of these things simultaneously.
- Listen to songs, tape my own songs, play that I am on the radio, sing together when we are together, listen to stories and read the book which came with the tape.
- Listen to stories, children’s music, record stories and letters with other children and with my parents.
Supplementary toys
Listen, tapes, drawing/cutting out/sticking at the same time.
Jessen (1986) gives the following description of children’s “home-made” recordings on tape cassette recorder: Four girls aged 7-8 years playing with a tape cassette recorder in their room.
They are doing “radio”. On the tape it sounds like role play with a live microphone but on listening to the recording more closely, the game is a special form of media role play - with roles and scenes from the media.
For example, they have an announcer and they make interviews. They are familiar with these roles. Then they decide to make the radio announcer report from a “party”. But a gathering of that kind sounds special - lots of people talking all at once. In order to make the programme sound realistic, the girls produce their own “party sounds”, i.e. three of the girls talk across each other while the fourth girl - the announcer - talks over, starting like this,” Well, we have arrived here in the middle of the party, and …”