Holiday souvenirs

Set up a decorative souvenir shop in the role-play area. Display commercial and child-made postcards on racks or propped up on book stands. Provide real or pretend stamps for posting the cards. Place a child-made postbox nearby showing collection dates and times on the front. Display commercial or child-made posters on the walls advertising ice-creams or holiday destinations.

Invite the children to donate souvenir-style models and trinkets from home to display in the ‘shop’ or help them to make models from clay, Plasticine® or dough to represent holiday knick-knacks. Help the children to make pretend cameras from small boxes to sell in the shop.

Ask parents to lend you items such as colourful T shirts, swimwear, flip-flops, lightweight beach balls, snorkels and fishing nets to display around the walls and on tables in the shop. Place empty tubes of sun cream and after-sun lotion on shelves together with other seasonal items such as flags, buckets, spades, maps, hats and sunglasses. Include a till, money, receipt rolls, paper bags and signs such as ‘Open’, ‘Closed’ and ‘Please pay here’.

Suggested resources

Display racks; book stands; bookshelves; low-level tables; coat rail and hangers; commercial and child-made postcards; real or pretend stamps; child-made postbox; commercial or child-made posters and advertisements; souvenir-style models; knick-knacks and trinkets or materials to make them such as clay, Plasticine®, dough and small boxes; borrowed items such as colourful T-shirts, swimwear, flip-flops, lightweight beach balls, snorkels and fishing nets; seasonal items such as flags, buckets, spades, maps, hats, empty tubes of sun cream and after-sun lotion and sunglasses; till; real or pretend money; receipt rolls; paper bags; blank strips of card; thick pen.

1 Picture postcards

Make and collect postcards for the role-play souvenir shop