Fantasy play

Fantasy play within the Montessori world isn’t something that Maria was a big advocate for she wanted her children in the orphanage originally and then when writing her approach she wanted to focus on children learning through things based in reality she felt that that was more relatable for the children that was more productive for them and more achievable because actually the children she initially worked with that was all they had and all they knew it wasn’t comic books and plastic toys in 1840 so things were very much rooted in reality what they could see what they knew in history books what they could learn from their current environment and nowadays I think it’s very difficult to avoid all sides of fantasy world it’s on the television adverts it’s in magazines you go to the shops with your little one and there’s glossy colourful Peppa Pig magazines calling out to you there’s TV programmes on CBeebies where animals are talking to each other and on my new child is slightly old are you got super heroes and there’s a lot of fantasy happening in children in things marketed to children and almost unavoidable these days now children’s imaginations are limitless and they might be drawn to play that is led by their side of creative imagination and wanting to explore those ideas they’re having in their imagination and acting them out in their play and I think if you’re going to approach the Montessori method of parenting you don’t have to be as pure as things were when Maria Montessori started this approach because the world we live in is very different now compared to what it was like when she was developing these ideas plastic didn’t exist so they weren’t plastic toys they weren’t superhero comic books and narratives such as there are now so she didn’t know about that a lot of us modern Montessori and field if we were to beam her in and ask her questions about this sort of topic we feel that certain elements should be on board with as long as there was a learning element that could come from it for the child so if she could have an opinion on Spider-Man and give her side of that fantasy thoughts I think it wouldn’t be a complete now however I think she would still want there to be focus on play rooted in reality role-play using real things that you can hold because her emphasis was on learning through physical movements then retaining that muscle memory and that actual concrete memory to then allow children to step back and abstract those thoughts to memories and concepts learning so fantasy within Montessori wasn’t really a thing however I feel it’s a bit unavoidable in this modern world we live in so you might want to just consider how much fantasy play you’re offering or allowing your children to explore you might just want to take a moment to consider not encouraging it further than it is however I know as a mum it’s very tempting when your child has an interest in something we want to follow the child we want to foster their learning through things interesting because then we know that they’re going to be more inclined to play with it more or to explore it more or to engage with it better so it’s a bit of a fine line with helping Foster your child’s learning three things that they enjoy things are interested in but then providing opportunities for them not to just go down in one track road of what they want to learn and what they want to engage with