Travis loves to play with his Legos, but sometimes even his imagination needs a boost. When boredom struck today, I challenged him to have his favorite characters hold a “ceremony”. You could do this game with just about any toy your child love, whether that means dolls, stuffed animals, action figures, or something else.

Travis chose to have a coronation ceremony to proclaim one of his Legos as king. If that doesn’t interest your child, you could also suggest weddings, birthdays, or other big celebrations as the “ceremony” of choice.

To start he wanted to set up a throne and a long hallway for the royal procession. Other Legos would be the bystanders of course, and the new king needed guards.

All hail the king!

You can make this game as elaborate as your child wants, adding music, props, and lots of fanfare. Veronika was so jealous that we quickly built a throne for Queen Bunny, too!

After this round of imaginative play had the creative juices flowing, we upped the ante: challenge your children to act out a scene not with toys but with their own bodies!

The easiest way to do this, unless your child knows a particular movie by heart, is to set a favorite scene playing in the background and act along with it. In short order, we had the following cast from The Mandalorian:

Dad: Mando

Mom: Fennec

Travis: Boba Fett

Veronika: Baby Yoda

Baby Yoda had to sit in the center of a meditation rock.

Uh oh, Baby Yoda lost interest quickly, so a prop stood in, instead.

Travis loved imitating poses and hearing us get into character with our lines. This activity was such a novelty, and is a sure way to perk up your child’s pretend play no matter what day of the week!

We’re marking the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, and still searching for novel ways to fill long days indoors. Here’s a simple twist on couch cushion play to keep things novel!

I pulled out all the couch cushions and simply told the kids it was an airplane, a little bit of imagination required; two long pillows formed the body and the two back pillows jutted off to the sides as the wings.

From there, the imaginative play was up to them! They added stuffed animal passengers, and got a kick out me taking on the role of pilot to make landing and takeoff announcements. (Depending how many times your children have traveled by air, you’ll likely need to model this for them before they pick up the lingo).

My passengers’ favorite part? Not just having a snack when the “concession cart” came along, but being naughty and eating snack on the wings!

If your kids are familiar with airports, they can make a much bigger game of this. Ticket counters? Security check?

Veronika has never seen an airport, but she latched right on to the idea of baggage claim. We packed up a little suitcase with some of her summer clothes and I placed it on the edge of the couch for her to claim.

She quickly ran over and was soon busy unpacking!

Why stop at the limits of Earth’s atmosphere? A little more imagination and a quick switch-up of the pillow configuration, and it swiftly became a rocket instead.

Here goes Veronika on a space walk!

We made pictures of the planets so we could decide which one we were zooming to.

This little astronaut needed her space suit on!

Again, your kids might want to get much more detailed with the game, especially if they’re older. Moon boots? Buttons and command controls inside the space ship? Experiments on board? We’d love to hear your how imaginative play goes, in the comments!