Yesterday I went to Pretend City to hear about the Good to Go program that Pretend City is partnering on, along with the Children and Families Commission of Orange County. It’s a great program, offering free education and developmental assessment for children through 5 years of age. They use play as the basis of evaluation and education. Click through to learn more about the program and how you can benefit.
After the session we stayed to play a bit. If you are not familiar with Pretend City (I wonder if similar resources exist in other cities?) it is a children’s museum with a focus on play and imagination. The entire museum is designed as a child size village, with stores, police and fire station, doctor’s offices, gardens, restaurants, theater, bank, construction sites, and even a beach and river zones. It’s like the playhouse of your wildest fanatasies, come to life.
For the first fifteen minutes my 2 year old sat in the doctor’s office, quietly playing with a simple wooden toy. All I could think is “I bring you to this wonderland and you pretend you are in the doctor’s waiting room? Are you insane?!” I also wondered why he would not play with such toys quietly at home. Or at the actual doctor’s office. In true annoying parent style I did my best to point out all the other attractions he was missing out on. Cars! Squirt guns! Crafts! In true 2yo fashion, the more I pointed out, the more he insisted that the wooden bead maze was simply the most fascinating and fun toy ever invented.
And then I pointed out that there were a lot of buttons for him to press at Pretend City. Buttons he was welcome to press without my saying the dreaded “N” word (NO!). He lit up like a Christmas tree and the rest was history.
Thanks to Pretend City for hosting and letting us stay and play.
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