BIG and LITTLE – dog park world

Welcome to the first BIG and LITTLE pretend play collaboration. Jillian from A Mom with a Lesson Plan is tackling the BIG and I am tackling the LITTLE. This month we chose dogs as our theme and I get to go first. Be sure to check back tomorrow to see Jillian's post – Jillian is an expert in pretend play and I am learning a lot from her. I am renowned for not being very good at pretend play, so for me, this is an exciting collaboration.

For our LITTLE we decided to make a dog park for all our toy doggies. This was a great opportunity to talk to the kids about how to safely approach dogs.

To build our little dog park world we started by spreading out a large batch of bright green playdough. On a trip to the local park we had collected some twigs and sticks. The twigs became a 'wooded' area and the sticks became a path leading into the dog park.

We used small paddle pop sticks for fencing and created a tree from a toilet paper roll stuffed with green tissue paper. The girls wanted to add a pond (we used a bowl) for the dogs to swim in – those lucky little doggies!

We added some signage, drawn by Cakey, a water bowl (milk bottle lid) for thirsty canines and some lego flowers. We found string for leads – all dogs outside the fenced area had to be leashed! Dogs that escaped and ran around free and swam in the pond were called "naughty dogs". The girls enjoyed letting their doggies escape and trying to rustle them back into the fenced park.

Our little dog park world was well used for a few days. The fence was pulled down and resurrected a number of times. The doggies came and went and all of them had a swim – it was a very packed pond!

Laying down our big batch of green playdough

Adding a pond so the dogs can have a swim

Better get a bag and clean that up!

Here comes another dog on his leash

Run little fella

Thanks for reading the first installment of BIG and LITTLE, I hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow Jillian will be revealing her BIG pretend play idea for all our furry friends. I can't wait!

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali



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