Yesterday morning William was playing with his trains when he noticed that he could see the reflection of his engines in our Brio Bell. He started looking for other things that engines could see themselves in and moved to the window, precariously balanced on a chair. I then remembered that I had bought some round mirrors for sensory play and I got them out. I put them on to Esther and William’s play table and allowed them some time to explore.

They loved making faces and they loved it when my reflection popped up in their mirror. William got all his engines involved and Esther had little people and animals. It was fascinating to watch them play and to listen to them talk, to witness their learning through play. A privilege.

Esther and William collected different things from around the playroom to look at on the mirrors. They loved seeing the symmetry of the reflections and they loved that everything in the mirror was upside down. They were so excited to try different toys on the mirror. Favourites were there Christmas cut outs from Orchard Toys.

After a little while of independent exploration I decided to introduce some glass beads to see what they would make of them. I gave them a tub of large glass pebbles in blue, green, amber and clear. They loved the feel of them and holding them. They loved arranging them on the glass, sorting them by colour and using them to create things on their mirrors.

So much play from two round mirrors and a tub of glass beads!

William immediately started trying to make an engine and used the clear pebbles as steam.

Esther started trying to make the faces of characters from Peppa Pig.

It is so fascinating how differently they play with the same materials and resources, and the same input from me.

Esther and William both enjoyed filling their mirrors with pebbles arranged in lines or in circles around the glass. They just liked moving the coloured glass around. I think they liked the feel of the glass, cold and smooth in their hands. They also liked the clattering noise the pebbles made if placed too heavily on the glass. There was lots of exploring to do, lots of sensory exploration.

There was also lots of imaginative play and the pebbles made wonderful settings and accessories for small world play.

The blue pebbles were used as water and sky, the green pebbles became grass, the amber was sand and the clear pebbles were used as ice, clouds and steam. I love my children’s ability to create something out of nothing and I adore the way that they narrate everything that they do.

Esther created a beautiful winter wonderland using her Playmobil animals and people and accessories. She played with it for ages, talking constantly about what she was doing and giving her characters voices.

William is quite obsessed with trains. He still acts out stories and creates scenes but they are very heavy influenced by engines and particularly those from Thomas. It was inevitable that at some point this mirror play and exploration of reflections and symmetry would soon revolve around tracks and round trains.

William also enjoyed looking at the reflections of different animals. He loves thinking about shapes and patterns and colours. He thinks much more logically than Esther who is all about creating worlds and setting scenes and feeding animals!

William did combine animals and trains quite spectacularly for a while!

Both children played with the mirrors for hours yesterday. And both returned to them today. They have been intrigued with this new surface for playing on and I love seeing how it has changed and extended their play. We will definitely be playing on the looking glass some more in the future, creating small worlds, building with blocks and looking at patterns and colours.

I hope they will enjoy it as much as I am looking forward to it.

Do you use mirrors in your play?