SCENARIO: World Council of Princesses

Leah, dressed as Ariel, overseeing the World Council of Princesses

My friend Noelle warned me Leah would have a princess phase. She said her daughter Chase spent three months insisting on princess dresses every day.

Noelle was right. Leah is heavy into the princess thing right now. It hasn’t kept us from playing barbies, it has caused us to play barbies in a particularly princess-y way.

Far Left to far right: Esmerelda dressed as Jasmine Morrocan Princess, Chandra as Tiana Louisiana Princess, Mayan Princess (no name yet) , Mbili Princess of the Zulu Nation, Bella Princess of Australia, Isabella Princess of Spain.

Today might have been a kind of “pinnacle of princess play”.

Princesses from all over the world came together in our Barbieland to meet and solve the world’s problems.

Leah wanted Bella to be in charge but I told her that women tend to rule in more collaborative ways and that means there is no boss. Only facilitators and voting.

I explained to her that Bella, as facilitator, would likely call the meeting  to order. She would not boss everyone around and tell them ”what’s what”.  Instead she should ask each princess to speak in turn. Then, when everyone had had their chance to talk about problems and solutions, the group could vote on different solutions. When Leah is older I can actually start to introduce her to the basics of Parliamentary Procedure using barbie scenarios.

Left to Right: Mulan Chinese Princes, Fulla Yemeni Princess, Sushmita Indian Princess, Moonshadow Native American Princess, Princess of the Fairies, Jasmine Morrocan Princess

Since Leah is only 4 1/2 I had the princesses talk about lack of rain and other “simple” problems. As Leah gets older I believe I can introduce more complex geopolitical topics and let her try her hand at proposing solutions to world hunger and regional conflicts. She can have her ladies weigh in on trade policies like restrictions and tariffs, immigration policy, disaster relief – you know, the kind of stuff every pre-teen girl is asked to ponder.

Anyway, back to the fabulous princess ladies and their meeting.

We have such a beautiful variety of princesses and a few are collector dolls that we keep in full regalia at all times. But you can make a princess council out a few dolls and few random dresses. In fact, as long as you have at least two dolls, you’ve got a council. And if you can get your barbégé to agree that they are princesses (regardless of their clothing) then you have a princess council.

Also, our royal roundtable is made of a pillar candle pedestal (these come in a wide variety) and a wooden “sign.”

 The pillar candle pedestals are usually about 4 inches tall and a little more than 3 inches across the top. Search the web using “pillar candle holder” in your search terms and you will see that there are many available. You can use them alone as occaisional tables or put a wooden placard from a craft store on top to form a formal dining or meeting table.

Craft stores also sell markers that look like woodstain so Leah and I just bought a dark wood colored marker from Micheals and colored the placard to match the pillar pedestal. It comes close enough to matching the base and the table is great for big parties and international princess meetings.

If you don’t have a table just have them sit in a circle on the floor.

Disney is currently selling Princess Accessory sets at 2 for $20. We don’t use the Disney dolls because their heads are too big and the characters too restrictive. Then again, it is easy to take the accessory and wardrobe sets and have a Core Player become a Disney princess for a particular scenario. We bought accessory/wardrobe sets from the local Disney store recently  – which is why we were able to dress a Barbie Basics Asian (rebodied with a Liv Body) in a Mulan dress.

We also bought the Jasmine set, the Tiana set and the Pocohontas set.

Also, just because we dressed an Asian doll as Mulan, doesn’t mean we always stick to ethnic typing. We often use dark-skinned dolls in Cinderella’s dress or Belle’s dress and call them “Cinderella” – we don’t say “Black Cinderella.” Especially if, for example, your child is Asian, have Asian dolls dressed as Tiana, Ariel, Mulan, or any other character she is fascinated with. You’ll see eyes light up when you do this.

REMEMBER AS ALWAYS to be open to your barbégé’s creativity. Just because you have decided to play a certain scenario doesn’t mean you have to stick to it in any formal way. Play is about developing your barbégé’s trust in her/his own judgement as well. When Leah decided one of the princesses was also a fairy who would use her magic to help solve some of the world’s problems, I didn’t suggest that magic and fairies were “out of bounds”. When Leah wanted to them to have books instead of laptops (as I had suggested) I praised the idea. When she wanted to have a monkey on the table serving the ladies water, I held my toungue about germs. When she wanted Bella to have a guitar I led the council in an “call to order sing along” of “Heal the World”.

Heal the world…
Make it a better place.
For you and for me
and for the entire human race…

(GOSH THIS MAKES ME MISS MJ)

 

SCENARIO: Fire Rescue

I bought a new set of Barbie clothes at Target the other day.  It’s called the “Barbie I Can Be…Heroes Fashion Pack” Super cute Firefighter outfit. Somewhat trashy policewoman minidress(?). We used the great Firefighter clothes to create a Firefighter Character Player.

She was so cute she immediately impressed upon us a role for herself in a scenario. We put Becky, who is wheelchair-bound, in one of our houses and used an orange hand towel to simulate a house fire. If’ I had been planning a fire scenario I might have created some orange and yellow tissue paper flames but the hand towel was sufficient in an impromptu setting.

Three red heads made for a fiery scenario.

After our Firefighter rescued Becky she took her to the hospital. A doctor showed up to talk about smoke inhalation and what you can do in case of a fire (stop, drop and roll).  A policewoman showed up and talked about Arson, which she defined for everyone and then talked about how it is against the law to set things on fire and how many children accidently set things on fire.

Several of Becky’s friends showed up: Chandra, Trichelle, MoonShadow (some of our Core Players).  While Becky’s friends were there, the Firefighter came by to check on Becky and everyone thanked her for being so brave and strong. A nurse came in to announce that the Mayor wanted to visit. Becky said that would be okay and the Mayor came in make a short speech commending the Firefighter, the Policewoman and Becky (for having an Emergency plan).

What Leah didn’t realize is that I have a brown TV Anchor Barbie stashed in the top of the coat closet. I was just about ready to whip her out for a Mayoral Press Conference when Leah announced ”The End” for our Fire Rescue Scenario. Oh well – maybe next time Tamron Hall will get a chance to bust out of her box.

SCENARIO: Dance Contest

Last night Leah came up with the idea of Break Dancing contest. We laid a peice of carboard in the center and each barbie took a turn. After a while she wanted one of her barbies to sing so it sort of became a talent contest. Finally, she decided her doll would teach my doll to break dance and so she did a move and then I had to copy it. This is a great, simple scenario that requires no playsets and can be played almost anywhere.

It helps that Leah and I had been to a Street Festival a few weeks before so she understood the concept of people standing around the edge of the cardboard and each person taking a turn, the approximate length of each turn, and clapping as a person finished but this set of social norms surrounding break dancing is pretty easy to explain if your barbégé hasn’t had a chance to absorb these rules from real life.

Scenario: Classroom relationships, Teaching & Learning

The opportunities for using a classroom scenario are endless and Mattel has offered a number of education-themed playsets over the years. We have purchased various pieces from sets put out in the 90′s and we are able to create a lot of different classroom configurations. You can purchase a “I can be.. a Pre-school Teacher” sets in stores now.

You can have Kelly, Stacie or Skipper-sized dolls as students and your barbégé can repeat what they are learning in school as a teacher character Bavatarbie .

When I want to practice a set of words I’m learning in Spanish, I take over the role of teacher Bavatarbie and make all the other players repeat what I am practicing.

We were lucky enough to get lots of school accessories and playset pieces off ebay so we have chalkboards and desks but it is possible to play this scenario without any props at all.

If your barbégé is highly interested in romantic relationships you can make it a college class or night school and then channel the play toward the ways college students might both flirt AND learn

Michaels/Hobby Lobby type stores sell small (5 x 7 inch) chalkboards in wooden frames that you could use as a chalkboard if you don’t have a set Mattel accessories.

Leah is currently in pre-K and I am surprised that when we do play preschool her favorite thing to do is to have the adults arrive to pick up their kids. Of course. I love this! I like to think it means that seeing me arrive in the afternoons is her favorite part of the day!

SCENARIO: Accents and Origins

I like to do accents. British, Indian, Australian, West African, Jamaican – you name it. It’s fun for me.

Sometimes Leah wants to play a scenario that I feel we’ve already “played out.”  But children need repetition, and I want to allow her the practice of whatever situation she’s interested in so when I acquiesce to her I need something extra for myself.

When I find Leah’s chosen scenario boring, I try to spice it up by practicing different accents and trying to give the dolls back-stories. Today, while playing Pet Shop I gave a RocaWear Darren a deep southern drawl.  I also tried to do a German accent for a red-headed doll and a surfer accent for Cali Guy Steven.

I wasn’t that great and kept getting the accents mixed up, but Leah didn’t mind.

I also tried to develop the dolls personalities a bit more. I had one woman (actually a Ghanian Dolls of the World whom we have re-cast as a SIS Chandra’s mom) bring in her granddaughter for pet shopping. In a split-second I decided this woman would be extremely business like saying things like “My granddaughter has met the criteria I put forth. She saved her money and has had perfect scores on her chore chart for four weeks in a row” and “She is aware that she must choose a pet that falls within certain parameters – namely it must live in a cage and weigh under 5 pounds.” and “So, Zahara, have you made a selection?” Leah didn’t miss a beat and seemed to be able to keep up even though the language and structure were not geared toward her the way most conversations are.

This personality and backstory development does several things – it keeps the Barbie-Playing-Mentor from getting bored silly, it models for the child that play doll play can have layers of complexity, it teaches them the concept of “personality” and individual differences and, best of all, it add dimensionality to the play so that a session head in almost any direction.

Scenario: Petshop

I find that playsets are necessary in order to keep scenarios going. When you don’t have some kind of props or accessories you will run out of play scenarios pretty quickly.  A theme that Mattel seems to have come back to over and over again is pets so you don’t need to buy the latest or greatest thing in order to get some dogs, horses or other animals for your collection.

We purchased a Sweet Sounds Pet Shop on eBay and have played with it already for several hours. We supplemented the purchase of the older Pet Shop with a Potty Training Pups set that is in stores now.

During our first session I played the shop owner and Leah played the customers. I was able to model the behavior of a shop owner and we covered all sorts of vocabulary specific to a pet shop play scenario.

It’s not that she needs this particular vocabulary, it’s just that it challenges her to infer the meaning of words and it helps her gain confidence with adult conversation patterns.

When it was time to play the scenario a second time Leah was already able to greet new customers, ask what they were looking for, sell accessories like pet food and toys along with the pets themselves and request payment. Sometimes I feel a little odd when I am proud of her for upselling a dog collar, as if I have become a pawn in some sinister mission grooming her for future work in retail.

Then again, my first job was in retail and I know plenty of people who don’t have those basic skills.

In any event, the pet shop scenario was one that worked for us and will probably be our favorite for at least two more weeks.

SITUATION: Long Plane Flight

We recently took a four hour flight to Boston and all we had with us were Leah’s So-In-Style collection (Grace, Chandra, Kara and Trichelle). We also had Darren and Zahara.

First, we used our tray table as a stage for Chandra to dance but then Leah decided the tray table could be an operating room table/massage table. She had each doll lay down in turn while Kara stood between her (Leah’s) legs and operated on each of the other dolls. Later she gave them each a massage, forcing Kara’s little hands to do a chopping move.

If you were on Jet Blue you could pretend they were at the movies because there is the screen embedded in the back of each seat. What would you do? or what have you done to play barbies on a plane? What scenarios do you think would work  for barbie playing in-flight?

UPDATE: Another great tray-table activity would be a dance contest.

SCENARIO: Summer Camp Introductions

Last night we had four kids and myself playing – so yeah, me, the Barbie-Playing-Mentor and my four barbégés.

I used Alex from Wizards of Waverly Place as my Bavatarbie. Here’s how things went:

Alex asked all the barbies to sit in a circle. She welcomed them all to Summer Camp and noted that they would all  be living together for the next week. “I want us all to introduce ourselves, give your name, your age, your favorite color, your favorite food and your favorite activity.”

This was a great social learning activity. Some of the barbégé’ Bavatarbies tried to raise their hands but Alex, acting as a facilitator and not a leader suggested that since they were all equals all they had to do was say, “Excuse Me.”

The barbégés had a bit of trouble with that because they yelled “Excuse Me” at inappropriate times. One barbégé kept saying “Excuse me” even though he had no follow up comment or question.

When the intros were over, Alex laid out some food, then a few dolls wanted to perform songs. Finally one of the girl dolls asked a boy doll to dance and they started making kissing noises.

As the Barbie-Playing-Mentor I was trying to figure out what to do to guide things back on course when we were all called away for human dinner. In retrospect I think I would have had my Bavatarbie Alex say, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you are kissing. You just met each other five minutes ago!!”

Ideally, we will play this one or two more times (no dancing, since we found out where that leads) and then I will ask one of the other players to play the facilitator role. I know lots of adults who don’t know how to facilitate a meeting of equal humans so this will be an amazing skill to develop in my barbégés.

This scenario helps players develop empathy.