The Wizard of Oz Small World

After the success of our Jurassic Small World we are participating again in the Small World Pretend Play Ideas from A to Z series hosted by Still Playing School. This time our letter is W – a perfect opportunity to create a Wizard of Oz Small World.

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It is hard to believe that The Wizard Of Oz film is now over 75 years old. Adam thoroughly enjoyed watching the film and as a result we purchased a story book. Although Adam is at the early stages of small world play I couldn’t resist creating a Wizard Of Oz Small World.

I used a small white tray as our base and placed it outside on our sensory bin stand. To create the iconic yellow brick road I used six sponge scourers purchased from Sainsburys. I removed the green scourer part and used a permanent marker pen to add the brick detail. Either side of the yellow brick road I added recycled coloured rice from our Earth Tuff Spot to represent grass.

Our wonderful Wizard Of Oz characters came from Twinkl. I printed their Wizard of Oz Stick Puppets and laminated them. I attached Toto to Dorothy so he wouldn’t get lost. The gap between each sponge created a great slot to hold the characters as they went up the yellow brick road. I hid the Scarecrow behind wheat stalks, the Tin Man behind wooden trees and the Lion behind plastic toy trees.

A Wizard Of Oz Small World wouldn’t be complete without an Emerald City. We created ours by painting craft lolly sticks two shades of green and attaching them with PVA glue to the outside of a small cardboard box. I placed green marbles inside the box to help the Wizard stand up. Finally I added a wooden rainbow at the end of our small world.

You can tell Adam is used to sensory play because his immediate reaction was to explore the texture of the coloured rice and marbles. He liked to grab handfuls of rice and watch it fall and to pick out individual marbles from the Emerald City. It took him some time before he noticed the characters and enjoyed moving them up the yellow brick road. The great part of our Wizard Of Oz small world is that all the resources can be stored and reused time and time again.