Why role play is fundamental to learning

Since its launch last year, one of your children’s all-time favourite toys has been House, our doll-house style toy in the Playroom. We’ve seen our players cook chicken in the dryer, devour every item in the fridge in a single sitting, put outfits in the dishwasher, and just get downright silly! Even within all that silliness, kids are learning so much in House — the main learning takes place through schemas.

We all learn through schemas: we memorize the consecutive steps that make up a certain action and carry them with us through life. Believe it or not, we start learning this as young as the age of one! For example, “eating” consists of a variety of schemas. Children learn to put food on their fork, bring the fork to their mouth, chew and swallow. That schema fits into a larger one named “dinner” — setting the table, cooking the food, enjoying dinner, and then clearing the table.

We all learn through schemas: we memorize the consecutive steps that make up a certain action and carry them with us through life.

As adults, we have a million of these schemas internalized and use them as we go about their day, but toddlers are still in the midst of learning them. This is why toddlers love helping around the house so much and why our House toy is so popular — both experiences are great learning tools to develop schemas.

Now, we are taking these schemas to the next level with our brand new toy: Shops!

Time to go Shopping!

Shops features five unique stores on a quaint shopping street, and there is so much to do!

How about cooking up a storm in the bistro or stopping by the clothing boutique for a snazzy new outfit? Kids can also practice choosing a gift for someone special or picking a plant in the plant store (and treat themselves to a little bouquet)! With endless opportunities to explore these local stores, kids are bound to be enthralled by every nook and cranny in Shops.

3 Things Kids Learn in Shops

Whose toddler doesn’t love to have a special shopping day together or even just join them on a quick errand? Everything is exciting and there are so many things to see and do (and a lot of opportunity to hassle us parents for a new toy!). Here are just a few ways and things your child will learn and practice while tapping into their creativity and problem-solving skills in Shops:

Pet Care
Having a pet is not a walk in the park! Well, unless you’re taking them for a walk in the park, of course. Pets require a lot of care all throughout their lives. In Shops, kids can start to understand this through small schemas: they can bathe them, dry them, give them a good brushing, and dress them up in little accessories before feeding them and setting them down for a nap.

They can even eat a variety of people food, but be careful! Dogs and cats can’t eat certain foods, like chocolate, so in Shops, pets will actually throw them back up!

Aside from cute dogs and cats (oh, how much fun we had dreaming them up!), we also included a variety of other less traditional pets, like a spider or a gecko. We apologize beforehand if your toddler now wants a tarantula as a pet!

Bakery + Bistro
The bakery and bistro offers kids a glimpse behind the scenes of food service establishments. They often only experience the front end of these places — the place where the bread is sold or the dining room of a restaurant. In the bakery and the bistro, not only do they get to play customer, but they can also try their hand at being baker, chef, maitre d’ or business owner as well! Restocking the pantry, making sure their customers get a lovely dish (hopefully not a pet food dish!), trying out new recipes or making a birthday cake. There is so much work going on behind the scenes of these places, and it may even inspire some restaurant pretend play in your home!

A lovely way to bring this lightning bolt of inspiration even further into the real world is to include your toddler in the kitchen. Pull up a chair to the counter and let them mix all the ingredients together or even try their hand at chopping! Little hint: always cut food down the middle beforehand so it doesn’t roll away, and make sure it’s softer food they can handle well like cucumbers or tomatoes.

Plant Shop
The plant shop offers a variety of little seed packs to plant and grow your own plants and flowers. Children will need to keep an eye on the seedlings and make sure they get enough water to grow! When they’re fully grown, flowers can be arranged into a vase, encouraging kids to tap into their imaginations and bring out their inner flower artist!

If your little one is inspired by our plant shop, try taking them to a nursery and have them pick out a couple of flowers. Bring them home and let them arrange the flowers into a vase. This is a wonderful form of self-expression and gives them a boost of confidence by letting them contribute to the home.

As always in our Playroom, there is no right or wrong way to play with Shops. There are many opportunities and many different ways to interact with all of the little small businesses, and all of them are great. Does your kid like to “play by the rules”, or play by their own rules, like sneaking some pet food into a donut? Great! They are learning no matter which way they play! With hundreds of new characters, animals, objects and recipes, Shops provides kids with a robust toolkit for aspirational play, storytelling, problem solving and so much more.

We’re always so inspired by the way kids interact with Pok Pok and continue to play, learn and grow, and we can’t wait to hear what families like yours think of our little update! We’d love to receive your feedback, see your play videos and hear your ideas — share your thoughts and say hello at hello@playpokpok.com or on social media @playpokpok.

Our new Shops toy is available now in the latest update of Pok Pok Playroom!

Join our community to get insights from our educators and take a peek behind the scenes into our toy design process over on our Instagram!