Playing with Alice

Alice has very imaginative play. She can create a world in her imagination and interact with it. I’ve not known any of my other grandchildren do it like her. Arthur would have a world, but he’d be the only one in it and he wasn’t open to suggestions, he’d just want to concentrate on doing what he was doing. Once, we had string balanced all across the ski chalet, so you couldn’t move from one side to the other without pulling some down (much to his anger). Alice takes ideas from film, TV and books and she loves having someone to play with. She sometimes wants to be in charge but will often take new ideas and spin them into the backdrop. I’ve successfully introduced Scary Cat, pirates and dinosaurs into games. Elsa, from Frozen is a popular character (always played by Alice) and she’s handy person to be because if the game’s getting a bit dull, you can always start freezing the other players. Often, I’m quite glad to be frozen like a statue so I can have a bit of a rest. We been doing a fairy story in Spanish in Spanish Plus the other week – los tres cerditos (three little pigs) and I thought I’d talk about the Big Bad Wolf (our game needed a baddie). Alice said she didn’t like the Big Bad Wolf because he was scary. I told he the story of the Three Little Pigs with the emphasis on the incompetent wolf and then I asked if she knew the story of Red Riding Hood. She did, she had a book and we rummaged though her library to find it so I could read it to her. She enjoyed it and then wanted to play Little Red Riding Hood. In this version, she was Elsa, I was the wolf and RRH was an invisible figment of our imagination. When she came walking through the woods, the plan was that Elsa would freeze her and then the BBW could catch and eat her. Today, we were playing with Lego/Duplo, little pots and water. The Duplo dog got stuck in the pot and, joking, I said “we need to call for Paw Patrol.” She seized on the idea. She was Sky, I was Ryder … Oh no, the dog (it’s Rubble, decides Alice) is stuck in the pot. We need Paw Patrol, let’s yelp for help. Pups to the Look-out. Sky, Rubble is stuck in the pot, use your winch to get him out. There’s some singing of the Paw Patrol anthem (with some variation because I can’t remember it) to set the scene, then Sky (Alice) arrives to pull out Rubble and everyone is safe. “Again,” says Alice and we repeat half a dozen times until there’s a game change. Now, the Lego horse is stuck on the table and his mummy can’t get to him. We need Paw Patrol, let’s yelp for help. Pups to the Look-out. Sky, we need you winch to lift the baby horse off the table and return him to his mother. Repeat six times, with no lapse of enthusiasm. The Paw Patrol song must be sung and Ryder has to go to the Look-out to brief the dogs… The loop is finally severed when it’s time to head for Thurmaston shopping centre.