Who doesn’t like to play with a dollhouse and better yet, design it first? It was fun to watch my friend jump right into designing and building, not looking at the picture on the box. She learned by trial and error as the door was on the second floor and rooms were closed in at first. With her open-ended play, she needed open spaces to manipulate little Emmie through the stores and up the staircase, as she ordered her mint ice cream with chocolate syrup! Mom liked the shiny, plasticized panels and easy snap connector pieces, “I like the modern decor!” Visit the Ice Cream Shop, General Store or Candy Store with inviting illustrations to stimulate conversation–a counter to order your ice cream, sit and watch them add the syrups, or chat at the table by the window. Choose your supplies at the old fashioned General Store, and have your produce weighed and wrapped in paper as you pay at the cash register. The Candy Store looks like it’s fashioned after the shop in my little town that has entertained and fed generations. From bubble gum, old fashioned candies and cupcakes to candy bars and gifts, kids can play pretend in a favorite destination. Besides the stimulating open-ended open-ended story-telling, these Wonderhood sets include a character’s journal to up the ante of language learning. She gives her bio, favorites, and design challenges. How fun to give language-based story-based instruction so kids can learn from a word problem rather than a picture. I offered this Wonderhood set to a 1st grade teacher friend of mine to take to her classroom. In her words, “My kids absolutely loved the Wonderhood Corner Shops. I had a group of 4 play with it. They loved building their own creations, as well as trying to make the ones on the box and in the booklet. Their comments were, ‘It is super fun!’, ‘I love this!’, and ‘I could do this all day!’ They wanted to stay in at recess to keep working on it!” What an endorsement by the kids. As they design and construct their physical buildings they are also building their stories, becoming proficient authors too!
Available at Wonderhood Toys. Click here
