Small World Essentials

Small world play is an important area of children’s play, and it assists in many areas of development. It allows children to use their imagination and to express thoughts and experiences into their play, whilst exploring the world they live in.

Small world play also helps with building social skills and language skills by expanding their vocabulary and understanding.

When setting up a small world there are always certain elements I try to include:

Blocks

Blocks are essential to any small world. They can be used by themselves to make complete structures, or they can be used to as part of a set up to create different levels. The world does not exist on one level nor should your small world!

Infrastructure

Where there are people, there is infrastructure. I usually begin a set up by laying out the infrastructure whether it is a train track, a road, or both if I am being especially ambitious. Ramps and tunnels will make this aspect of the set up even more fun.

Transportation

Trains and cars are both fun in different ways. I really enjoy watching a battery-operated train race around a track that we’ve built, but I do have a soft spot for cars. They come in such a fun variety of designs, and you can also get cars that can transport peg people and become part of the small world narrative.

Buildings

Once the infrastructure and transportation are sorted, I start adding the buildings in. Sometimes we use multiple small houses and dot them around, and other times we use a single larger house as a feature. These types of houses don’t have to cost loads either. A wooden guinea pig house makes a great small world addition so start scouring the pet store aisles!

Nature

Some might say we have too many trees, but can you really have too many trees? There are so many different styles to choose from and each creates a different type of atmosphere in your set up.

People

We mostly have gender neutral non-descript peg people as they can then take on any role. We have a mixture of different skin tones and different sizes as well.

Animals

Animals are a lovely way to extend small world play. When building a collection, I would recommend collecting by type. We have farm animals for farm setups, and we also have forest animals. Some popular wooden animal brands include Hotztiger, Ostheimer, Brin d’Ours and Lanke Kade for the littlest ones. My personal favourite is Brin d’Ours. I would recommend choosing one brand of animals and mostly sticking to that so that your collection has a coherent style.

I hope this has given you some inspiration to create your own small world set ups, visit our Small World Play section to see our favourite small world bits.