Creating a Play Center for Your Toddlers

I've discovered a great article in the September/October 07 issue of Wondertime magazine. I love this publication, by the way! In this issue, an article on creating a play area in your home for your kids has helped ease my obsession on making sure our 18 month triplets and 7 year old son have a fun play and learning environment. Fortunately, our basement has the perfect room which we divided in half to accomodate our more media-centered son (already equipped with comfortable furniture, books, and television). Just a few fun touches to make it kid-friendly were purchased at Ikea. For our on-the-go/young explorer threesome, we used tips from the Wondertime article. First divide your play area into four sections: dress-up/imaginative play, building blocks/cars/puzzles or small motor skill play, quiet (book readling) play, and sensory interactive play. The imaginative play area consists of a small tote of dress-up clothes, hats, old costumes, jewelry and a wall mirror (I purchased a set of 4 small round mirrors from Ikea for under $7.00). The small motor skill play center has a table and chairs and a sorting bin of various toys (blocks, cars, dolls, etc). Our quiet play area has a basket of easily accessible books and a comfy floor cushion for our three toddlers to crash onto for rest and reading time. The sensory interactive play area in our house for now is occupied by a train table for train tracks and Thomas the Tank Engine. However, it was suggested in the Wondertime article that a water/sand table be used to fill occasionally with various materials (macaroni, oatmeal, rice, etc) for little hands to explore textures and to practice their fine motor skills with shovel & bucket.