Many children enjoy submerging themselves in imaginative play. Here are our current favourite imaginative play toys. Playing imaginatively can be a brilliant form of play for developing speech, language and communication skills as well as social skills- through pretend/role play.

• Playmobil 9062 Family Fun Penguin Enclosure– We are big fans of Playmobil and although it’s been tricky choosing our favourite of their sets- this one is probably it! Great value and such an adorable little set up. Aimed at children 4+.

• Learning Resources Pretend and Play Doctors Kit – Playing pretend doctors is not just brilliant for speech and language skills- but we’ve found it works wonders in helping children feel less scared about any future appointments (as it builds their understanding) This set is jam packed full of everything your little ones might need to fully pretend to be doctors! Our favourite piece is the blood pressure monitor!

• Sylvanian Families It might be a personal bias including Sylvanian Families (having grown up playing with them and now loving seeing little ones enjoying them even now) ..but they are brilliant. Possibly the cutest imaginative play toys created. Children love their adorable features, articulated arms, legs and heads and their sweet little outfits. They are also fabulous for teaching children about family life. My current favourite are the Chocolate Rabbit Family below, with their cute brown tipped ears- but there’s a whole range to choose from.

• Bigjigs Toys Wooden Biscuit Box & Assorted Wooden Biscuits – Pretend Play and Role Play for Children Aren’t these gorgeous! Lovely imaginative play biscuit set for children to pretend to serve biscuits..not quite as tasty (haha!) but they will last a lot longer!

• Melissa & Doug Joey Magnetic Wooden Dress-Up Pretend Play Set (25+ pcs)

These magnetic wooden dress up sets are very well loved by young kids. Such a simple design that provides hours of fun. Because its magnetic, they make a great travel toy too as its difficult to loose the pieces!

•  Learning Resources Pretend and Play Calculator Cash Register– Toy cash registers are a brilliant resource for helping children pretend to play shops. Children can learn social skills through play as well as how to recognise and use money correctly. What we particularly love about this one by Learning Resources, is it doubles up as a calculator, allowing you to sneak some maths practise into their play!

• LEGO 41395 Friends Friendship Bus Toy with Swimming Pool and Slide, Summer Holiday Playsets for 8+ Year Old – We’ve only recently come across Lego Friends (where have we been??!) and they are absolutely wonderful. They combine the fun of building lego with imaginative play, with their mini doll characters. This set is brilliant fun to not only build with but play with after.
  
• LEGO 75934 Jurassic World Dilophosaurus on the Loose Set with 3 Minifigures, Drone and Dinosaur Figure– If you’ve got a dinosaur fan at home, this lego set is great for harnessing their love of dinosaurs and lego and encouraging imaginative play- acting out the scenes from lego jurassic world.
  

*Please note we were sent some samples for review. This post contains amazon affiliate links, for more details please read are About me section.