Reasons Why You Should Buy a Kids Kitchen Set for Your Little Ones Today
What comes to your mind when you think about kids playing outside? Probably a picture of children using slides, swings, engaging in games of tag, playing ball, riding a bike and physically exploring their environment. However, physical play is not the only kind of play kids do – they also love to pretend play. ‘Pretending play’ is a term that describes the acting out of stories, which involves multiple perspectives and the playful manipulations of ideas and emotions. Many researchers have identified the values of this kind of play as a vital component of the normal development of a child.
There is a number of different cognitive and affective processes that are associated with pretend play. This form of play involves make-believe, fantasy, organization, symbolization, cognitive integration of seemingly separate content, and divergent thinking. It also allows the expression of both positive and negative feelings and the ability to integrate emotions with cognition.
In pretend play, children love playing different roles and scenarios. A kids kitchen set is a particularly popular resource for pretend play as it gives children the opportunity to imitate situations that they are familiar with. Whether they are playing the role of a parent at home, a head chef, or a kitchen porter, a kids kitchen set allows children to imagine themselves in new roles and cook up exciting scenarios. Now let’s take a look at the reasons why pretend play and children kitchens go hand-in-hand.
Creativity and Imagination
Kitchen role play is a fun and exciting activity that stretches the children’s imagination and enhances their creativity. This way of playing provides them with an opportunity to formulate their own imaginative recipes and explore different imaginative ingredients. Kids also enjoy experimenting with different pretend utensils and appliances to create imaginative scenarios, either by mimicking actions of adults they have seen or by creating their own purposes for the object they use.
Social Skills and Teamwork
Playing with children kitchens encourages kids to engage in play one with another, and this helps enhance their social development. Kitchen role-play provokes discussions about who will play which role, what they should cook, and how they are going to do it. This helps inspire children to work as a team and cooperate so that they can get the job done faster. Learning to share, taking turns and listening to other kids’ opinions and ideas can all help improve a child’s social development.
Language and Communication
When doing role-play, children find an opportunity to express themselves creatively and engage in storytelling. Vocally enacting the role that they are playing helps them enhance their language development and communication. The kids kitchen set is a great tool that helps enrich a child’s vocabulary as they start to learn the names of new foods and objects. Plus, they will also start using new verbs such as ‘stir’ and ‘cook’ and opposites such as ‘cold’ and ‘hot’.
Planning and Organisation
Children love organizing their pretend kitchens. This includes assuming different roles and organizing different food types into sections – they generally understand that kitchen play is a more enjoyable activity when it is organized. They may choose to store the pretend ingredients away in the cupboards and neatly organize the plates and cutlery for their guests all while planning what they will cook and what they need to serve the meal.
Independence and Self-Confidence
Providing your child with their own play kitchen set helps give them a sense of independence, which increases their self-confidence. By adopting the role of working in a kitchen, children become responsible for keeping this unit clean, organizing the belongings and caring for the different items in the kitchen. All these can also help kids develop great leadership qualities.
Physical Development
Aside from all the wonderful cognitive benefits that pretend play offers, it is also a wonderful way for children to be active, to exercise and to develop their motor skills. Gross motor skills are put to good use by picking up small pieces of food, utensils and dishes and then placing them onto plates or in cups. Most kitchen sets come with accessories such as utensils, dishes, and food, but you can buy accessory packs separately as well.
Last Word
Kids sure love to play with toys full of bells and whistles. However, experts advise that playing with electronic devices is usually a passive activity. They explain that the definition of play, really, is that it’s a hands-on experience. That is why the old-fashioned toys like a kitchen set, wooden blocks and similar, provide more value than a lot of modern toys that you see on the shelves these days. But it is not just the electronics that are getting in the way of old-fashioned good playtime – the kids of today are far too scheduled, which means they have very little time for free play. Let your little ones enjoy their childhood by providing them with old-fashioned toys and plenty of time to play with them.