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Peter and the Wolf Small World Play

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Small World Play is something my boys are drawn to daily, chances are, yours kids are, too. Kids love using toys to act out familiar stories and make up new ones. This type of play is beneficial to children as they practice language, problem-solving, use their imagination, and more. While I love small world play to be open-ended, there are times when I like to guide the kids a little more based on what we're studying, or to go along with a book we've read. Small World Play is a great extension of so many things! Often, manipulating a small world can build new understanding for a tough topic. For example, when we were studying and listening to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, we used small world play to act out the story while we listened to the orchestra on CD. This Peter and the Wolf Small World Play is easy to set up and will expose your kids to classical music.

Peter and the Wolf Small World Play for kids. Perfect for retelling the story and helping kids understand the music.

Materials

Peter and the Wolf Small World Play

To start, I had my oldest son make a log cabin house and fence out of Lincoln Logs for Peter and his grandfather.

Small World Play house made out of Lincoln Logs

While he made those, I made a tree out of brown pipe cleaners. It was really easy--just twist a handful of pipe cleaners, leaving part of the bottom for "roots" and stability to stand and part of the top for branches. Then, I twisted smaller pieces of brown pipe cleaner to fill out the branches a little. I wrapped a branch around the base of the bird so it would look like it's sitting in the tree.

Pipe Cleaner tree for small world play

After gathering the rest of the materials, we were ready to play! The boys played with the animals, acting out the story along with the music.

Peter and the Wolf Small World play

It was funny hearing the boys pretend to be the grumpy grandfather scolding Peter for leaving the gate open. If you ever want to hear what you sound like as a parent, listen to the kids play and pretend to be an adult.

Peter and the Wolf Small World Play retelling activity for children

We listened to our CD of Peter and the Wolf with the story narration to help guide our play/story retelling at first, but after that, I let the boys play independently with the materials. This small world play activity was perfect for helping the boys understand the story of Peter and the Wolf. It also helped them stay interested while we listened to the music and identified the various instruments.

Peter and the Wolf retelling with small world play

Peter and the wolf Small World Play

In the end, we all cheered when the wolf was caught.

Child\'s hand playing with miniature toy person figurine. Log toy house, pipe cleaner tree, and animal toy figurines in the background. This children\'s activity is a Peter and the Wolf small world play activity for acting out the classical musical story.

Peter and the Wolf Books and CDs


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This post is part of the Small World Pretend Play Ideas from A to Z series hosted by Still Playing School. You can check out the other ideas by clicking the image below.

Small World Pretend Play Ideas from A-Z series

Which small world would you like to try?

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Courtney @ Mommy & Her Men

Wednesday 19th of August 2015

This is so fun! My son was just playing with Lincoln Logs earlier today, but getting frustrated that he didn't really know what to do with it once he built it. I will definitely encourage activities like this for him! Thanks for sharing!

Sara McClure

Thursday 20th of August 2015

Thanks, Courtney! There are so many possibilities for small world play!