Pretend City

Pretend City is one of the coolest activities to take your 2-5 year old to go do in Orange County. The name says it all, there are a number of "exhibits" for you and your child to experience together to enrich their imagination and spark their interest in everyday community happenings.

My boys loved the water area the best. With out realizing it they were experimenting with and learning about currents and buoyancy, not to mention practicing their manners and turn taking with the manipulatives provided.

Handy hubby's favorite areas were the construction ones, it gave him a chance to be hands on with the kids in a safe and fun way to share his work experience on their level. He also enjoyed watching the boys on the stage dressing up, dancing, making music and entertaining the crowd. He even happily helped Big Brother into a Tutu!

My favorite area by far was the art studio, there were multiple activities available and eager staff to facilitate the directed art and encourage the free art. The boys made a simple color and paste shark, painted on a window/wall, decorated a fish cut out at the free art table and played with Floam.

The staff and volunteers are amazing at Pretend City! There is someone at nearly every exhibit encouraging and participating in pretend play with the kids. They have special "Good to Go, From Head to Toe" activities organized to work on different developmental skills. The activity on the day we visited was a partner bean bag toss to work on spatial awareness. Most impressive though was their quick and comforting response to my lost child. Yes, that's right I lost one of my own while playing. While trading Baby Sister from my arms to Handy Hubby's, Little Brother went around a corner and disappeared. I looked into the sea of kids and immediately knew I needed help. I grabbed a staff and told her my son was lost and she calmly asked for the important info (name, age, clothing) spread the alert via the headsets everyone wears. I saw every employee perk up and start looking, and I was reassured that he couldn't leave the building. He was quickly found, and although I lost a few years off my life from the stress, I was thrilled to see him happily playing away. We set up a "I'm Lost" plan at that moment and told Big Brother the meeting place and kept a hand on Little Brother at all times.

I know this is a super long post, but I have one more super important thing to share because it is near and dear to me. Pretend City is working with local agencies to help encourage developmental screenings for children 0-5 years old. They call it "Good To Go, From Head to Toe" and it is a fantastic program. They offer free periodic screenings on site by professionals in multiple disciplines. Almost as good, they provide parent report screening tools to fill out at home, mail in to "Help Me Grow" (one of their partners in the initiative) to review and report back to you and your pediatrician. Just for filling out the screening tool you will receive a FREE children's admission to Pretend City for another visit, and then you can pick up the next milestone screening.

This early screening is so important to me for two reasons. First, I work with preschoolers with various delays and so many parents are unaware of what skills their children should have, and don't know to ask for help if those skills are missing. Many times they are hoping their child is just a "late bloomer", overly shy, or lazy. These screening tools help identify skills that are missing, and start a conversation with your doctor to help the parent learn how to boost those skill areas or refer the child out to a professional for further evaluation and help.

Second, as an educator I knew what to watch for and was able to spot warning signs early. At 16 months old Big Brother was diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), and began therapy shortly after. Today, he is a highly intelligent, social, chatterbox that is mainstreamed with minimal support in a typical preschool setting. Early intervention was the key, the earlier you tackle even minor delays the better. We don't know what the future holds, but we all want to give our children the best chance possible armed with every tool and opportunity reasonably available.

Now I'll step off my soap box and give you the website so you can plan your visit!
Www.pretendcity.org

Christi Kreg