Children love to imitate real life. And what is more real than a parent, exhausted, stopping into a coffee shop for a caffeinated boost? Or a couple of moms, along with their preschoolers, on a coffee-and-cookie playdate? With this Hot Drink Café dramatic play center, children can pretend they are baristas and adults enjoying a…
dramatic play
Vet Clinic Dramatic Play Center
Most children love our four-legged and feathered friends. Transform the dramatic play area into something extra special! This Vet Clinic can be a wonderful way to tie in science, math, cooperative play, and literacy skills all in one dramatic play area. It also encourages empathy, and can even help a child who might be feeling…
Sandwich Shop Dramatic Play Center
The dramatic play center is the perfect place for young children to “play to learn”. Our basic home living center is a kitchen, with play food, dishes, babies, dress-up clothes, and a phone. For a week or two each month we transform it into something extra special. This Sandwich Shop is a great one to…
Library Dramatic Play Center
We are always looking for new and creative ways to encourage learning in the dramatic play area. During our “Fairy Tale” unit, the students fell in love with all of the fun stories that we read. They constantly asked to take the book home to read again, which got me to thinking… we should set…
Drink Machine for Dramatic Play
Whenever we set up a new Dramatic Play Theme in our Home Living center, it’s important that we have 1 “Centerpiece” prop… something that really makes the area enticing and special for the students. When Super-Gemma and I were setting up this Taco Stand Mexican Restaurant, she had the brilliant idea to create a Soda…
Taco Dramatic Play
Hola, Amigos! We have something very delicious and fun ready for you in the dramatic play area. You might remember how much the preschoolers love the Pizza Parlor and the Pancake Cafe? Well, now it’s time to take a trip south of the border to visit our “Fiesta” Taco Stand Dramatic Play! Bienvenidos!! 🙂 Welcome…
Hospital Dramatic Play
Another month means another fun dramatic play center for our preschoolers! The area is our kitchen, and we leave it as a plain housekeeping center for a week or 2 each month. During the other weeks, though, we invite our kiddos to serve pizza or pancakes at a restaurant, fly to far away places in an airplane, sell cookies…
Pancake & Waffle Dramatic Play
I am honestly not sure who gets more excited each time we set up a new dramatic play area — me or the preschoolers! Our pizza parlor was such a big hit last month that I wanted to stick with a restaurant theme. When I came across Melissa & Doug’s amazing pancake and waffle sets,…
Pizza Parlor Dramatic Play
You might know that we really, really, love the Dramatic Play center. By changing it regularly from the basic Home Living center to other scenarios we give our students the opportunity to take on different roles. Since it’s the beginning of the year and we are just exiting survival mode and moving toward real playing and learning, we…
Home Living Dramatic Play
The dramatic play area is the center of our classroom community. So much fun, hands-on learning takes place there! We love to set it up with simple themes, like a restaurant, and elaborate themes, like this cookie shop bakery. But, at its basic level, the dramatic play area is a kitchen where preschoolers engage in…