Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Let's explore ... dolls and dolls' houses

Dolls happily lend themselves to use in extended play across all areas of early years provision, and their houses make the perfect resource for domestic and construction activities, says Judith Stevens.

Psychologists often divide play into several categories - object play (playing with objects such as building blocks, dolls and cars); pretend play (pretending a block is a mobile phone, for example); socio-dramatic play (acting out a story and taking different roles); language play (exploring words); and physical play (running, jumping and climbing). All of these types of play are important for different reasons. The key is variety. The wonderful thing about dolls and doll play is that it tends to incorporate all of these modes of play.

Most home corners include some dolls, but these, along with other resources, can take a lot of time to maintain and can sometimes become a little uncared for. If the home corner contains a grubby doll with one leg and no clothes and another with a broken eye, some plastic plates, a microwave and a teapot, don't be surprised if a lot of the role play involves the baby getting cooked!

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