Small World Play: Ancient China

Gong Hi Fa Cai!  It’s the Chinese New Year tomorrow and Mavi and I are currently learning about Ancient China  (using STOW Vol 1 as read along book). With these, we set up another small world play which is inspired by the history of China.  Here’s what Mavi and I assembled.  Last month, we assembled an Australian Outback-inspired small world play and it was a total hit!  This month, the boys are enjoying their free play with our new small world tray!


First, Mavi and Vito painted the newspaper with green and brown. This will be the base of our Great Wall! Painting is one of those activities that kids love to do together!


We placed the newspaper (once the paint dried) at the bottom of our wooden tray then stuffed it with small world figures and materials from our Safari Toob collections, LEGO and Playmobil.

What’s in the tray?
You will first notice our country profile card with the dragon.  I made this card for Mavi to read whenever he plays, and I added a dragon, as this is one of China’s famous icon and symbol.  The dragon is part of the Playmobil Advent Calendar which I got Mavi last year.


Qin Shi Huang and Chinese Buddha
Qin Shi is the first emperor of China and the country was named after him (the figure is part of Playmobil Advent Calendar) and the Chinese Buddha is from Hong Kong.

Other objects we added were:

•  the dragons from Safari Toobs
•  the Giant Buddha from Safari Toob Landmarks
• a DIY flag of China
• the Great Wall of China made of LEGO (Mavi made this)
• the rest of the items from Playmobil Dragon Advent Calendar.

Here’s Mavi loving the dragon. We were discussing the role and meaning of the dragon in China’s culture and tradition.


Vito loves our tray too! The tray is good for one to two weeks.  It is placed on top of the shelf for the boys to easily access and play with the figures as long as they want to.


What a successful collaboration from Mavi, Vito, and I! They enjoyed playing the materials that we have in the tray, most especially our dragon!  History, geography and imaginative play all rolled into one!

If you are interested, we did several China-related activities before.  You can click this (part 1) and this (for part 2).

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