26 month old and Pretend Play

Last Thursday morning when I drop Daniel off at nursery, nursery staff asked me what Daniel's interests at home, they have registered Daniel's interests at nursery is 1)Role Play; 2) reading books; 3)Sand play... there must be something else but I didn't remember as I was in the rush to go to work. They explained that children might have different interests at home, so i quickly summarised a few Daniel's interests at home for their record:1)singing, Daniel is quite into the music, nursery rhythms. he likes to sing; 2) hopping and dance, bouncing in bed; 3) Books, which was coincided with his interests at nursery. I was going to say Daniel's first interest at the moment is BUS RIDE because this was the first thing pop in my mind, but i dint think they will take him out for a bus ride, so I decided to save this one to myself. While i was driving to the work that morning i thought through their question and the answers they came up with, i concluded the same answers for Daniel. Actually I should have said that Daniel's first interest at home is Pretend Play as well, which is the same as when he is in the nursery.Two and three year old like to practice talking, by talking to themselves. Daniel likes talking, he chat chat chat chat... non stop. Most of time he was pretending things. He likes to pretend 'going to work':

Daniel was pedaling his bike, 'I (am) going to work... give me a kiss...bye...bye...' he pedaled, pedaled, came to kiss me and Terry then pedaled away. ' don't forget your sandwich', he came back pretending to ask for money, I pretended to give some money. he said 'don't drop it...'

'going to the gym', 'going on the bus';'going shopping'; 'going the tent' are also Daniel's favorite things to pretend. actually while I am tying this he is pretending that he was Makapaka, who is peddling his bike to go under the 'tunnel'(table). I really like to offer encouragement and suggestions when Daniel is engaging in pretend play through my part of pretend conversation /play because pretend play helps him understand the power of language. In addition, by pretend playing with others, he learns that words give him the means to reenact a story or organize play.