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This paper is devoted to the observation of preschoolers’ free play with different types of materials for pretend play. It is shown that role substitution varies in play with different materials. When children played with play costumes (role markers), many of them renamed themselves; however, the roles were similar in character and strictly related to the proposed costumes. Also, children rarely performed their role through actions. Playing with character toys turned out to be gender specific. Boys rarely played a role, preferring a director's position. Girls’ play was of different levels of complexity, their roles were complementary to their toys and original in character. When children played with toys that imitate real objects (cups, swords, irons and so on), they were less likely to rename themselves, the roles were rather similar; however, almost all children acted from inside their roles. The most balanced environment for pretend play was the one with open-ended materials: many children renamed themselves, and the roles were original (in fact, originality was the highest with this type of materials), many children performed the role through play actions (this was especially true for older preschoolers). The exception were 6-year-old children who, despite renaming themselves, did not perform any play actions in this environment.

This paper is part of a larger research focused on observations of preschool children in free make-believe play with different objects. This paper presents the outcomes of observations of children’s play with toys that imitate real objects (cups, swords, irons and so on).The dynamics of play activity in different age groups (3, 4, 5 and 6 years) is shown. In the two younger groups, role renaming is extremely rare and is accompanied by play actions, while children do not change their appearance in accordance with the role. From the age of 5, the number of renaming increases sharply: two-thirds of children call themselves some kind of a role name, many dress up, and the vast majority plays a role. At 6 years, there is a slight decline in the number of children with role renaming and a slight increase in the number of children who change their appearance as compared to 5-year-olds.In the environment with toys imitating real objects, the role emerges in response to toys, which significantly differs from how the role appears in the environment with open-ended materials. The paper describes the roles that were employed in the play with toys.