Dinosaur small world in a pot

Operation: Create an outdoor play wonderland - Phase 5 

Dinosaur small world in a pot

I am starting to really, REALLY enjoy our little outdoor area! I still love looking at inspirational play space ideas for bigger, grander gardens ... but for now - ours is not. In fact, the more I embrace the small spaces, the more I love them!

Inspired by so many gorgeous small world blog posts, such as Two-daloo's "Building Language with Small World Play" , My Nearest and Dearest's Forest Small World and Fantastic Fun and Learning's 12 Creative Dinosaur Worlds , it finally dawned on me... SMALL WORLDS! Of course! If our home was built for anything - it was built for small worlds!

Little surprises to collect and move between other pots...

... more little treasures to choose and add to the small world fun of the moment...

The pot plants seemed the obvious first place to set up some little multi-sensory, imaginary, play space, which could utilise lots of natural elements. 

At the moment, we don't seem to have many figurines in the house, but the few we did find seemed to lend themselves to a magical dinosaur land setting.

Even though I think it is most valuable to pick scenes for small worlds which are familiar to the child, I just wanted to try a small world in a pot, with the idea that the scene would likely change many times over the coming couple of years. 

The big dinosaur drank from the lake a lot

The result? I think our little adventurer loves it! He has taken himself quietly off to the pot plant small world most days since we built it:-)

So many smooth, shiny, colourful, precious gems hiding in the lake!

"Uh oh!" The little dinosaur, wizard and prince fell down off the mountain... which seems to also have crashed or disappeared somewhere too I've just noticed!!

So many different textures to play with in this small world - rocks, stones, tan bark, special gem stones, water, plants...

The big dinosaur drank so much water from the lake - it needed constant re-filling! - The pot plant didn't mind at all.

Fresh mint served as a yummy snack for the dinosaurs

If you enjoyed this post, you may be interested in the other Kids' Play Space posts documenting the transformation of our mini concrete jungle into a more natural play wonderland for our 2 year old to enjoy:

Phase 1- The Shell Sandpit

Phase 2 - Tree Stumps
Phase 3 - Gardening Magic 

Phase 4 - Follow the Fenceline Brick Road
Phase 6 - Ladybird tyre and bottle top insect friends 
Phase 7 - Frog Small World
Phase 8 - Outdoor puppet theatre

Thanks for visiting Kids' Play Space!
'til soon,
happy playing!
Anna :-)