Have you ever had a terrific activity planned (with lots of kindergarten readiness fun and learning) and thought it would turn out one way only to have the kidlets do something quite different? That’s one of the possible outcomes when play is child-led instead of adult-led.
Plays-of-the-day this month all start with a p–April starts with a p, and today’s is playing with paper. Instead of the usual drawing, gluing, coloring, and cutting, the plan was to rip, crinkle, tear holes, make into balls for tossing, use as parking spaces for toy cars, fold, bend, and create, to really explore lots of different ways to play with paper. That way the kids could be problem-solving, creating, discovering cause and effect, using lots of language and communicating, interacting, sharing, negotiating, organizing, planning, and more. Paper is great for sensory play. For all of this, it was easy to gather up paper from the recycling, pull some out from various cupboards and create a box of paper. 
Only…one piece of tissue paper was orange like fire. Plus, there were some yellow and blue pieces. The tissue paper became a campfire and campfires are for roasting marshmallows. Which the little one did. The playing with paper activity sparked lots of imaginative and pretend play. It was most definitely child-led. What kinds of fun and learning and other adventures can your child have with paper?