ABSTRACT
One of the delights of watching and listening to a three-or-four-year-old at play is that, she does usually make things easy for the eavesdropper. Three-to-four is certainly a peak age for children's fantasy play, in which they try out for size the roles of other people or other creatures; but it is also a time when their fantasies happen to be relatively open to observation. In an important sense, though, cooking side by side in the kitchen with mother or father is reality play, while cooking pretend cakes in the play house is fantasy play. Psychologists have tended to emphasize the child's need to use fantasy play in a therapeutic way, to cope with difficulties and troubles, and perhaps this is partly because these are the kinds of examples which make a big impact on psychologists' observation. As children grow older, some will graduate from fantasy play to putting on dramatic performances, either impromptu, or carefully worked out and rehearsed.
