Miniature Box Play and Kids Get Crafty Link-up

Do you ever just totally over complicate you kids’ pretend play?

At the beginning of this year one of my creative goals was to make a few miniature scenes for my four year old. When he wanted a “party day” it seemed like a perfect opportunity to make a little pretend party scene. Soon we were cutting and gluing and I was making a cute miniature paper party bunting. All was going well in mama-son craft land when four year old imagination struck.

With sudden worry my son said, “No one knows! No one knows to send the presents for the party!”
Me still smiling, “But we’ll make pretend presents!”
My intense little son deep in the imagination of the party, “No one is sending us presents! This is not a fun party!”
With more and more anger and sadness, “No! NO! They don’t know it’s party day! No one knows it’s party day!!”
Me, tying to salvage the situation: “Well it’s a pretend party. We can even make pretend mini cards!”

That did it. Oh dear.
No one even knew to send cards to the pretend party!

::Sigh::

The party was definitely done. I stuck the box on the counter thinking it would just be stuffed in the recycle bin- my unfinished failure of a miniature world.

But the next day (sleep always helps, right?)

The monkeys in a barrel needed a place to hold a miniature party!  They needed blocks and game pieces to play on!  Later the counting bears joined them.  The four year old imagination was back in swing but this time it was filling in the details of my “unfinished” party scene.

Ohhh right… I hadn’t failed in creating a miniature world. The thing is, my son had entered that miniature world the moment we started making a pretend party. He had skipped over the “we’re making this” part, and had jumped right into the pretend party. He was way ahead of me while I had a hard time letting go of my ideas about all of the fun things I still wanted to make.

Perhaps we could have avoided a melt down the day before if I could have let go of my ideas and just played with him instead of trying to make a more complex scene.

Thankfully I was still invited to the miniature monkey party the next day and no pretend presents were needed or missed.

This brings us to another week of Kids Get Crafty, hosted by myself and Red Ted Art.  What kids crafts have you been up to this past week?  Post your favorite in the linky below and then add a link back here so more people find these good ideas!