Bringing Lily the Pond Mermaid to Life Through Small World Play
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
One of our favorite ways to extend a beloved book is by bringing the story beyond the pages & into play.. After reading Lily the Pond Mermaid by Lucy Fleming, we were inspired to recreate Lily’s enchanting pond through a small world invitation.
The story follows Lily, a tiny mermaid who lovingly cares for her pond & all the creatures who call it home. When a storm disrupts their peaceful environment, Lily discovers the importance of friendship, community, caring for nature, & accepting help from others.
The beautiful pond setting made it the perfect inspiration for a world children could continue exploring long after the story ended.
To create our pond, we lined the Tuff Trays with our deep spot mirror & magnetic mirror to add an element of reflection & light play, then layered in tree blocks, rocks, aquarium greenery, lily pads, pond creatures, rustic bowls & pourers, stacking gems, & solar fountains. The fountains added movement and ripples across the reflective surfaces, bringing the miniature pond to life and inviting children to build, arrange, pour, stack, & transform the environment.
One of my favorite things about pairing books with #SmallWorldPlay is watching a story become something children can physically interact with. They can recreate and reenact favorite moments, recall the chain of events, explore what happened first, next, & last, and deepen their understanding of the characters, setting, problems, & solutions.
As the play unfolds, so does language. Children narrate what their characters are doing, create conversations, use vocabulary from the book, ask questions, & begin telling stories of their own. What starts as story retelling often quickly becomes imaginary play, where children change the storyline, introduce new characters, solve new problems, & decide what happens next.
Through this simple extension, children are strengthening language, literacy, comprehension, sequencing, creativity, communication, & problem-solving while developing an even deeper connection to books.
What began as a beautiful story became a small world play the children could touch, build, explore, retell, & reimagine.
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