Hello, we are the Riccardi family three! We live on the beautiful west coast of BC in Vancouver. Our family consists of one very active, and imaginative 3 year old boy who loves pretend play, and 2 teachers for parents who LOVE watching his imagination in action!
Gigi is a pretty typical 3 year old when it comes to toys! He can be found playing with his cars (he especially loves Police cars and Firetrucks), flying superhero's around the house, bringing his toy dinosaurs to life, picking up sticks at the playground and pretending to be a pirate, engaging in a lightsabre draw as a Jedi Knight, and building castles both out of blocks and in the sand at the beach.
Ever since our son was little we have encouraged the development of his imagination and pretend play. We have a basket of dress up clothes and props always available and my son LOVES to dress up in costume and surprise us! He especially loves to take on the role of Superhero's and rescue us! We love to engage with his imagination, and find it is a great opportunity to work on problem solving skills, and a great way to find creative resolutions when things aren't working out how we planned. We can imagine how issues might be resolved from different people's points of views and take on empathy for others.
One of my favourite things is to quietly approach Gigi while he is playing and listen to the conversations he is having "in character". I LOVE how he assumes the character role. Most often, he is a pirate and likes to send Mama to jail for being "naughty" (I swear, I wasn't!).
Grab a few costumes and props and put them in a basket so that they are easily accessible and let your child take the lead! We love watching our son's imagination soar when he pulls out our costume basket. I love how active and engaged he gets in the play, and that there is no end to the play! It can continue on for however long we want, or we can end the story and start all over again, any time we want! I love how quick it is to transform our couch into a pirate ship, or how the space under our dining room table is now a dinosaur cave. The sky is the limit to what we want to pretend!
We came across Great Pretenders on Instagram, and when chatting with friends have found many of them are familiar with the products also! We are LOVING the costumes, and so glad we took the chance to enter the brand rep search. We have really enjoyed the products. I love knowing these will last us for many years because the quality is great, and the cape style costume allows for children of all ages and sizes to share the costumes. And, as a teacher, I LOVE this product even more because it is not only great for my own son, but I think it would add to any classroom!
