If you are a parent, I'm sure you've also heard of the term pretend play and its importance in the development of children. In simple terms, pretend play is a type of activity in which children imitate the roles that they observe around them. Pretend play is their imagination actively working, thus allowing them to develop their social and emotional skills. On the physical aspect, the activities that children do allow them to better gain hand and eye coordination, and even help them develop their muscles if they do more rigorous activities.

Last year, when we saw that our youngest son was beginning to engage in pretend play, we gave him toys that would encourage him to experiment and explore activities on his own. One of his interests back then was kitchen activities. He would get his knife, chopping board, as well as, fruit and vegetable toys, and pretend to be preparing the ingredients and cooking them.

When our son celebrated his birthday, we thought of giving him a toy that would give him a "full" kitchen experience. That's when we discovered One Elephant Toys. These are wooden toys that come in different varieties like kitchen sets, doll houses, and wooden racks.

For our son, we bought the wooden kitchen set and he was completely elated when he saw it. In fact, for months, he would play with his kitchen toys from the moment he woke up. The One Elephant kitchen set came with kitchen cupboards, a sink, a stove, a grill, pans, plates, a timer, a knife, skewers, and food (meat, vegetables, and seafood). It was definitely of high quality; I highly suggest One Elephant Toys to parents who are looking for well-made pretend play toys.

In terms of encouraging pretend play in children, based on our experience, I believe One Elephant's strong point was how beautifully made it was. The best way to keep children interested for a long time is to give them a toy that they won't get tired of playing with easily. It's been over a year since we bought the One Elephant kitchen toy set for our son and he still plays with it. He still uses the cupboards to hide his toys or when he imagines his robots to be playing hide and seek.

Another quality to look for in pretend play toys is sturdiness. Let's face it, children are not gentle when it comes to their toys. As such, you need toys that can keep up with their "brutal" hands. This is also one thing that we loved in One Elephant toys, they are sturdy and won't break easily. So far, only one cupboard door has fallen off and that was just because I wasn't able to screw it tightly.

Of course, our children's safety is our utmost priority. Based on the description of One Elephant toys, they are made of non-toxic paint and materials to keep our little ones free from harm during play.

One Elephant wooden toys are available in Lazada and Shopee. A word of caution though, you would have to assemble the toy yourself. Nonetheless, it's fairly simple to assemble and quite enjoyable as well.

If you are looking for toys that can encourage your little one to engage in pretend play, then you might want to consider One Elephant wooden toys. They're of excellent quality and they are also beautifully made, so your children will definitely enjoy playing with them.

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