Your local Early Learning Centre shares four key benefits of children using their imagination.
Imagination transports children to a world that is their own, one where they can make beds turn into boats and a flashlight becomes the sun. Imagination is also a key facilitator for a child’s cognitive and social development, which is why it is something we strongly support at our centres.
1. Develops Social Skills
Imaginative play in the form of role–playing is a great facilitator for a child’s social skills. A child is experimenting with numerous life roles, whether it is as themselves, animals, or adults, they are exposing themselves to different lifestyles and ways of thinking, useful when dealing with peers.
2. Builds Self Confidence
Self-confidence and imaginative play go hand in hand. As a child uses their imagination to explore and try new things their sense of accomplishment develops which then builds their confidence.
3. Increases Intellectual Growth
Imaginative play encourages a child to be faced with a variety of situations and problems for them to solve. An example of this can be seen when a child is “building a house”, the house may need a roof and the child needs to think of an appropriate material that would be suitable to act as a roof. This type of critical thinking is a great steppingstone for their cognitive development, improving the way they approach and solve future problems.
4. Practices Language Skills
Children are sponges and everything that is spoken around them they often process either consciously or subconsciously. Often, these words can transcend into their role–playing. Role play helps to boost a child’s vocabulary, improve sentence structure, and begin to foster their connection between written and spoken language.
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