Encourage and expand your toddler's play when they are engaging in imaginative activities

What to do 

1. Ask your toddler if you can play with them. 
2. Use language and actions that might be used in the real-life version of the game you're playing. This could be saying, "Excuse me, can we have a table for two?" or "My teddy is poorly, he says his tummy hurts." Or taking a coat and hanging it on a peg. 

Good to know 

Play can be a great way to expand your toddlers' horizons: you can pretend to do things they haven't experienced yet and use play to recreate things they have already seen.  

They might find things they haven't experienced at all a bit tricky now, and you might find even if you're playing a game about monsters, that the monster ends up doing something very normal, like having dinner and going to bed!