One of the pleasures of being a collector who builds doll houses is making a beautiful doll house for a young child in your life and giving it to them to play with. A beautiful handmade doll house can be a wonderful toy that will really stimulate the imagination of a child.
The great thing about children playing with a doll house is that they already have a rich imagination. You won’t have to do too much encouraging, once you have set the stage for them they will be able to come up with all sorts of creative scenarios. You’ll be amazed by all of the creative ideas they have. However, if you are looking for even more doll house fun, here are some fun ideas that you can add into the mix:
Recreate Real Events from Your Home
Why not encourage your little ones to play games in the dollhouse that echo real things that have happened in your home, such as getting ready for the first day of school, having a birthday party or Christmas morning. Children like to recreate their experiences in their imaginative play, as it is a way to understand the world around them. You can even role play with the dolls, acting out the events as they happened.
Make Art for the Walls
You can give your children small pieces of paper, pens and pencils and encourage them to make art for the walls. They can make little drawings, which you can frame with small pieces of cardboard or wood. Also, you could have your children make patterned wallpaper or even paint the doll house furniture. If it is around the holidays, you could make Christmas or New Year’s decorations for the house. Let your imagination go wild, there are lots of ways that you could decorate your dollhouse!
Turn it Into Something Else
If it wasn’t a house, what else could your doll house be? If your little ones are tired of playing with a house, you could suggest that they turn the house into something new. Perhaps it could be a shopping centre, with each room selling a different product? Or maybe it could be a zoo for toy animals, with each room holding a creature in its natural habitat? Perhaps the doll house could be a Wild West jail, with cells for all of the dangerous cowboys that the town Sheriff rounds up while riding on his horse. There are many possibilities for what your doll house could be – so let your child’s imagination go wild and see what they come up with.
Add New Characters
Take a look through your child’s collection of toys and see what miniature figurines you could add to the doll house scene. With different cartoon and film characters, animals and other dolls, you will be changing the story and making the doll house more interesting to play with. When it comes to imaginary play with a doll house, it really is the more the merrier! If you want even more characters to join the party, you could even make your own dolls with paper, fabric, wood or other materials and paint faces on them.
Let Them Help You Build
A lot of work goes into building a doll house and your young children or grandchildren have probably seen you working away, putting together dolls house furniture, painting the walls, finishing the wood and assembling all of the tiny details. Why not let them join in and help you build the doll house? If they are old enough, they can help to paint some of the furniture or glue things together. This can be a very fun activity to enjoy together and the young child will be thrilled that they are included in the building process. Perhaps all of the pieces won’t be perfect, but it will make for a great memory.
These are just a few of fun and creative ideas of what you can do when you build a dolls house for your child to play with. Remember – there are no rules to creative play, it’s all about following your imagination and having fun. Let the dollhouse be the starting point, then let your child create their own miniature world of fantasy and play.
Martha Williamson is a doll house builder and collector of miniatures. She has built several beautiful doll houses over the years but her favourite is the house that she built for her granddaughter to play with.
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