Flower Shop Dramatic Play Center

This flower shop dramatic play center is a perfect spring activity for preschool or pre-k. Turn a standard dramatic play area into something extraordinary. Rotating dramatic play centers and pretend play centers keep the children’s interests while also providing literacy and math opportunities. Bring some sunshine into the classroom and integrate essential math and literacy skills while learning through play!

Flower Shop Dramatic Play

When spring fever hits, this is a great pretend play center to get children engaged and busily interacting with one another. If students are excited to engage in play, eager to play with each other, and if their hands are busy, behavior problems automatically decrease.

Flower Shop Dramatic Play Materials:

• Flowers
• Flower Shop sign and printables
• Watering cans, vases, or other similar containers
• Tissue Paper
• Ribbon

There are lots of ways to bring flowers into your pretend play area. If you’re lucky enough to live in a region where spring has sprung, invite the children outside to gather flowers.

Silk flowers from the dollar store are also a good, economical solution. They are often sold in bunches – 4-6 flowers for only a dollar!

Make sure to prepare the silk flowers so that they can be reused year after year. Cut the individual stems apart. Pull the flower off the stem and add a drop of super glue. Attach the bloom back to the stem and they will be more durable, long-lasting, and kid-friendly for a busy pretend play area.

Choose four different types of flowers. The goal is to make it very easy for the children to sort them in their pretend play shop. (Look! Students are also working on sorting – an essential preschool math skill. It’s integrated seamlessly into their role-playing, without teacher direction.)

Inexpensive plastic flower pots, small baskets, or plastic vases are good options for displaying these flowers in this garden dramatic play store. To make the flowers display better, consider adding a piece of craft foam (also called oasis foam) to the bottom of the pot. The foam pieces are also readily sold at the dollar store! Don’t forget to add a drop of super glue to the bottom so that they stick to the pot and last longer.

Vases full of brightly colored flowers are gorgeous and irresistible! Label each pot of flowers with a price tag for the store. Remember that it’s crucial to include letters and numbers in a young child’s environment. Learning about numbers and money is another essential preschool math skill – check!

Pretend Play – Choosing a Role!

Some preschoolers struggle to figure out exactly what to do and how to play in a new pretend center. These dramatic play centers work well because of the use of role-playing name tags. For the flower shop, the preschoolers can pretend to be a florist, a delivery driver, a cashier, a gardener, or a customer who orders a bouquet!

If your space and resources allow it, extend the flower shop into a gardening center. The preschoolers can pretend to plant, water, and tend to the flowers before they are for sale. These unique watering cans are from Ikea, and the students love to use them.

Spring is also the perfect time to plant flowers in your real garden. Help students make the connection between the pretend play center and “real life” by finding a spot in your garden to plant flowers. Use the same water cans and encourage the children to take care of the plants by watering them each day.  

Flowers to Go

Continue to extend the pretend play and create an area where students can take orders for flower bouquets to go! Offer squares of tissue paper (dollar store), ribbon (dollar store), and scissors. The students will get great fine motor practice while wrapping and tying the bouquets.

Perhaps the flower store customers would prefer to take the bouquet home in one of these ultra-fancy plastic vases?

Maybe a garden planter is more their style? (These are from the Target Dollar Spot!)

It’s important to include many opportunities for reading and writing in dramatic play. Students can write down their orders at the flower shop before heading into the store. The florist also uses these forms for phone orders!

“Would you like these wrapped into a bouquet or arranged in a vase?”

“What color ribbon would you like for your bouquet?”

Finally, add a variety of blank cards to the writing center. They are the perfect addition to a dozen roses for Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, or a special birthday.

Join us on a video tour of our flower shop dramatic play center! Watch this Facebook live video replay:

Looking for even more pretend play ideas and dramatic play center printables? They’re all listed, with pictures, tips, and tricks! Just check out these other blog posts!