Ready?
Aaliyah loves to play pretend.
Can you name this part?
We try to play pretend with real-life activities.
It makes her want to do more and more, learn more and more.
As you play pretend, you're also learning.
Where are you flying to now?
Disneyworld!
Inanna loves to play games.
She's always thinking up things to do and games to play.
I'll try to make a little tent for you.
Joaquin loves to be active.
He really enjoys going up to the park
and just running around and getting that energy out.
Whoa!
Buckle your seat, Mom!
Click!
I would say Yoong is silly.
Fly, fly, fly!
Fly, fly, fly, fly!
Sweet, fun.
He does role-playing, he makes up stories.
Mom.
Yeah?
I'm going back to Aruba after three more months!
And it's fun being a parent just to be part of his life
and enjoy the moment.
This way.
Okay, this way.
Sometimes, we just use the most accessible things.
We're going to Japan.
To Japan, to Japan.
He just grabbed your suitcase and he was going to the airport.
Do you have your tickets?
Yeah!
Where are they?
Oh, okay.
First we were going to Japan,
and then suddenly magically we were going to Oklahoma.
H-O-M-A, Oklahoma!
I got to carry Roadie, of course, his lovely toy.
Yay!
Finally, Bobba got to join us.
How long does it take to get to Japan?
Eight days.
Okay, why not?
I was trying to just follow his lead,
trying to let him play
and explore whatever he wanted to explore.
Are we there yet?
We're there!
You get Roadie.
Where are you going now?
Disneyworld again!
Her grandparents have promised her a trip to Disneyworld
sometime in the future
and it's really an exciting fantasy for her.
You can be Minnie Mouse!
Minnie Mouse and Tinkerbell playing together?
Do you have any fairy dust?
Yes.
I want to do what she wants to do,
and that's what she likes to play.
She likes to show off.
Look how high I am!
"Look how high I can pump, look how high I can climb."
Mama, how do I get myself to go faster?
I guess you have to pump faster.
So when you kick your legs in the water in the pool,
it makes you go, right?
It's really fun.
It's a way to build our relationship with her
and feel like we're sort of sharing
in that aspect of her world.
Whoosh!
What other powers do you have?
Silly powers!
Whoa!
And I feel like I've learned so much from her
about how to be patient
and slow things down and enjoy silliness.
Whoa-whoa!
What's that noise?
It means "faster" in fairy.
In fairy language?
Whoa-whoa!
"Faster, faster!" she's saying.
Whoa-whoa!
I'm going to count to five, then I'm going to come get you guys!
Joaquin is very active and very athletic and very physical,
and I think that he is capable physically as he is
because of his older brother.
When we were at the park, there was a lot of that going on
where they were playing together,
and I was involved in that.
Oh, gotcha!
Joaquin had a friend at the park at the same time.
When we watch kids play games and activities
that for them are strictly fun,
we can see all types of learning going on.
He's seeing it as this fun time with his big brother,
but he's using all kinds of different skills.
Pump your legs!
There's so much going on
that kids have to figure out when they play
that it's pretty clear that they're also learning.
And so I've noticed his focus and concentration
and determination when it comes to achieving these tasks,
which a lot of them are very simple and easy
for his brother Tariq
are quite difficult for a four-year-old
in comparison to a 12-year-old.
Oh, big hugs!
You guys are the best.
Let's go make pizza.
One of the things
that I like to use with Aaliyah when we're playing
is let her choose the activity.
Like the pizza game, where we learned
how to categorize, you know, "Oh, where should this go?"
So she gave me the pizza
and we played pretend and she had her own piece.
I make it.
You make it.
I'm not telling her what to do,
but I'm just giving confidence to her that that was right.
You did such a good job making this pizza, Aaliyah!
I'm impressed.
She had a large fear of doctors.
She was really afraid of the doctor coming near her ear,
opening her mouth.
(speaking Portuguese)
So when we were playing doctor with the doll...
All right!
She was more comfortable because she could do it to the dolls
and she would do it to us.
I feel so much better now!
By playing pretend,
she's also able to use what she observed
in our regular activities.
Ah!
I want to go really, really, really, really fast.
You want to go really, really fast?
I'll see what I can do.
And really, really high.
That's as high as the birds!
I just feel that the importance
of enticing the child's imagination
makes them think everything's possible.
I'm buckled.
You're buckled, okay.
I have levels of joy
from getting into her little imagination
that I couldn't experience just by myself.
I feel like the more seeds we can plant
through asking these creative questions,
sometimes she really surprises us with her answers.
And how do you have such strong muscles?
Eating milk!
So she's learning a lot when we play
and we're learning probably ten times as much just from her.
Mushroom?
Everything you do with your child is a learning experience,
is new to them, is fascinating to them.
You can see on their face how proud they are of themselves
because you taught them.
Even through playing pretend, they learned something.
At this stage, he's a four-year-old
and he likes to play, he likes to do silly things.
How long is it going to take us to get back home?
Um... one minute.
Whoo!
If we can take five minutes to just come into his world
of pretend play, it's like he's set.
Everybody's happy and it's all good.
We're going back to the plane.
Then we can go back to the chores.
Bye.
Bye!
Bye, see you later.