Dramatic play preschoolers activities

This classic dramatic play center is another favorite. Set up a hospital with a triage cot, doctor costumes and lots of props. No explanation is needed! This is one of the centers (like the grocery store and the restaurant) that the children are usually very familiar with. They love to be called “Doctor”! Click HERE for more pictures of the set-up.

Hot Drink Cafe – Dramatic Play Center

Warm up with a mug of hot chocolate and a fresh pastry at the “Star Drinks” hot drink cafe. Click HERE to see lots of photo inspiration.

Ice Cream Parlor – Dramatic Play Center

Chocolate and mint ice cream with cherries on top… coming right up! Preschoolers love to scoop and sell this summer treat to their friends. Click HERE to see more pictures.

Do your students love to reread the books that you share with them in class? Set your dramatic play area up as a Library. Allow them to “check out” books with their very own library card and return them to school the next day.

Pancake and Waffle

What’s for breakfast?! Add the pancake and waffle sets (available HERE and HERE from Melissa & Doug) to the kitchen and fire up the grill. Children will love the custom menus and all of the toppings for their delicious breakfast.

Make a brick oven from a cardboard box and a roll of “brick” wrapping paper. Preschoolers will make pizzas, and order pizzas, and deliver pizzas, and pretend to eat pizzas ALL.DAY.LONG! Click HERE to see all the photos.

Post Office – Dramatic Play Center

Invite children to write letters to the parents or grandparents, to make cards for their classmates, and to deliver the mail at the Post Office Dramatic Play Center. Click HERE to see lots of pictures.

Can we take your order? The restaurant dramatic play center is chock full of opportunities to practice reading, writing, and teamwork. Click HERE to see the menu and order forms that are perfect for emergent readers.

Sandwich Shop – Dramatic Play Center

Switch the general restaurant into a fast-food sandwich shop. With this dramatic play idea, students will follow the menu board from left to right to choose the bread, protein, vegetables, and toppings for their very own sandwich.

Would you like a taco or a burrito from this very popular Taco Stand? Preschoolers will take your order then create the taco or burrito of your choice. What a way to “spice” up the dramatic play center!

Vet Clinic – Dramatic Play Center

While you’re learning about zoo animals, pets, or even the farm, this dramatic play Vet Clinic is a great way to engage children in pretend play. They will care for the animals and become veterinarians, x-ray technicians, and nurses.

Transformed trifold science boards into a straw house, a stick house and a brick house for an adorable version of the Three Little Pigs. Preschoolers who can memorize and act out stories will have great comprehension skills when they get to school. It’s also fun act out Goldilocks and the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Whether you’re setting up a plain restaurant, a pizza parlor, an ice cream shop, or a taco stand, here’s a surefire FUN way to spice it up. Add a drink machine! You can use a box or a bookshelf with just a few simple additions (paper cups and tissue paper) to make it extraordinary. Click HERE for more details.

If you’re looking for a quick set-up, cheap center, this is it! Get all the supplies from the dollar store and added water. It’s great for summer, too. Take those kids outside and put them to work! Sometimes the best dramatic play ideas are the simplest.

Put on paleontology hats and look for dinosaur bones and footprints at this dramatic play dig site. Click HERE to see how to use a simple ingredient from the craft store to turn the sensory table into an excavation site.

Do your kids like to pretend or role play? What is your favorite way to set it up? Whatever it is, have tons of fun playing and learning with your children today.

Be sure to follow this Dramatic Play Pinterest board for even more dramatic play ideas.

Follow Play to Learn Preschool’s board Dramatic Play Preschool on Pinterest.

All dramatic play idea printables are available HERE:

Are you a teacher?

FREE Home Living Dramatic Play!

The dramatic play area is the center of our classroom community. So much fun, hands-on learning takes place there!

After you subscribe, you will be redirected to the FREE Dramatic Play Set. We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at any time.

Drama games in preschool | Preschool education

Author: Tomilova Olga Viktorovna

Organization: GBDOU DS No. 67 comb. type of Vyborgsky district of St. Petersburg

Settlement: St. Petersburg

Dramatic play is a spontaneous amateur activity during which the child tests, clarifies and expands knowledge about the world and about himself. As they play, children reenact places and scenes they have seen in life, imitate the actions of family members, and assume the roles of various people they have met. They reproduce the world that they understand, or one that brings confusion and fear into their minds.

From early childhood, children imitate the sounds they hear and the actions they see. While enjoying pretend activities, children react to new situations with movement and voice. That's how they play. This game, if supported, develops into dramatization: an art form, a socializing activity and a way of mastering reality.

Creative dramatization and play, especially in young children, cannot be isolated or limited to a certain place and time. In a group, at home or in a public place, creative dramatization and play help the child develop responsibility, develop new interests and, especially in a group, absorb new knowledge.

Dramatization is one of the most personal and individual ways of learning. In creative dramatization, there are no performers who memorize roles and use accessories and costumes to influence the audience. In such creative activities, children spontaneously invent, act out and interpret familiar situations and themes for themselves. For example, they act out situations based on real or imaginary roles that they have come into contact with in life, such as going to the zoo. In dramatic play, children create their own world in which they master the real world. In this imaginary world, they try to solve real life problems. They repeat, play again, and relive their experiences. In this way, dramatic play helps the child develop from a purely egocentric being into a person who is able to interact with others.

Developmental Influence

In dramatic play, children often spontaneously take on the role or actions of someone else (pretend to put out a fire like firemen), use objects in a substitution function (sit on a building block while pretending to ride on a truck through the streets) and play out familiar situations (going to the market or grocery store). For a rich and meaningful preschooler, this is the ideal arena for emotionally rich and meaningful learning. Dramatic play develops the child in every way. If the educator correctly organizes the activities of children, they will receive a versatile (mental and motor) experience that is adequate to their individual characteristics.

In creative dramatization and play, a preschooler performs actions that:

1) contribute to the development of the five senses;

2) develop active and passive speech;

3) help children understand human relationships and learn patterns of behavior;

4) link ideas to each other;

5) stimulate creative thought and problem solving;

6) increase self-respect;

7) develop ways of expressing emotions and feelings;

8) develop fine and general motor skills;

9) signify the joy and freedom of childhood.

While playing, children learn to concentrate, exercise their imagination, try out new ideas, practice adult behaviors, and gain a sense that they influence the world around them. In addition, children gain a growing understanding of the beauty, rhythm, and organization of their environment and their own bodies as they learn ways to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and emotions to others.

Social development

The role-playing game almost always involves the participation of several children, so it is the most important factor in the social development of the child. The game often includes elements of joint planning and cooperation. Children may argue and get upset, but they get used to dealing with the interests of others. At the same time, they begin to understand that it is interesting and pleasant to play and study with peers.

Emotional development

Children bring to play what they know about life: their knowledge and delusions, their wishes and fears.

Play reflects children's understanding of social roles and relationships. Children can also act out events they have experienced or heard about. They may act out a frightening event, such as an accident they witnessed, to help deal with difficult emotions. They may also replay pleasant events to re-experience the pleasure.

In role-play, children can dress up and become whoever they want to be. Children depict people and events not only as they would like to see them, thereby expressing their desires or fears. The game gives the child the opportunity to express negative feelings that the child cannot yet put into words.

In play, children act out life experiences by selecting and organizing roles and events in accordance with the desire to maintain emotional well-being. Through play, children increase their understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, their attachments and dislikes, their ability to lead and persuade or obey. All this contributes to the development of self-awareness.

Intellectual development

During drama play, children develop cognitive skills, learning to connect one with another, to understand patterns of behavior and to organize information. They try ideas and learn from trial and error, they plan and execute plans, and form a vision of the past, present, and future. Children use memory to reconstruct people and events. In the game, children create using materials and toys in completely new ways. Thus, dramatic play stimulates mental development not only through the support of creative manifestations, but also through the involvement of speech skills that play a key role in thinking and communication.

Literature used:

1. Filatova O. Theatrical game-dramatization // Game and children. - 2013. - № 2.

2. Silivon V. The development of creativity in children in the process of dramatization games // Preschool education. - 1983. - No. 4.

3. Makhaneva M.D. Theatrical classes in kindergarten: A guide for employees of preschool institutions. - M.: TC Sphere, 2004.

Topic 9. Characteristics of theatrical games

The game is the most accessible to the child, an interesting way of processing, expressing emotions, impressions (A. V. Zaporozhets, A.N. Leontiev, A.R. Luria, D.B. Elkonin, etc.). Theatrical game is one of the effective means of socialization of a preschooler in the process of comprehending the moral implication of a literary work, participating in a game that creates favorable conditions for developing a sense of partnership, mastering ways of positive interaction. In the course of improving dialogues and monologues, mastering the expressiveness of speech, the speech development of the child occurs most effectively. In a theatrical game, children get acquainted with the feelings, moods of the characters, master the ways of emotional expression, self-actualize, express themselves, get acquainted with the world around them through images, colors, sounds that contribute to the development of mental processes, qualities and personality traits - imagination, independence, initiative, emotional responsiveness .

There is no generalized definition of theatrical play in the psychological and pedagogical literature. L.S. Vygotsky considers children's theatrical creativity as a dramatization, E.L. Trusova uses as synonyms for the concept of "theatrical game", "theatrical-game activity and creativity" and "game-dramatization", V.N. Vsevoldovsky-Gengross - dramatic games that are characterized by "the presence of an artistic image and dramatic action." Most researchers come to the conclusion that theatrical games are closest to art and often call them "creative" (M.A. Vasilieva, S.A. Kozlova, D.B. Elkonin, etc.).
Dramatization games “are intentional arbitrary reproduction of a certain plot in accordance with a given model - a game scenario” (O.A. Karabanova). Unlike a theatrical production, a theatrical game does not require the obligatory presence of the viewer, the participation of professional actors, sometimes external imitation is enough in it.

I.G. Vechkanova understands the theatrical game as an activity for modeling biosocial relations, outwardly subordinated to the plot-scenario in the indicated temporal and spatial characteristics; an activity in which the adoption of an image is materialized (dressing or a doll) and is expressed by various symbolic means (facial expressions and pantomime, graphics, speech, singing, etc. ).

A theatrical game is close to both a story game and a game with rules (L.S. Vygotsky, N.Ya. Mikhailenko, D.B. Elkonin). Researchers (P.I. Pidkasisty, Zh.S. Khaidarov and others) identify seven different forms of play activity: individual, single, pair, group, collective, mass and planetary. The theatrical game as a story game is essentially a group game, but it can be individual.

A theatrical game is an action in a reality given by a work of art or predetermined by the plot, i.e. it may be reproductive. Moreover, the role requires more than in the plot-role-playing ones, subordination to the plot, almost a rule that reflects the logic of relations and interactions of the objects of the surrounding world fixed by the author, but does not exclude creativity (I.G. Vechkanova).

In a dramatized game, there are no competition relations (unless they are scripted), unlike a game with rules.
At the same time, the theatrical game retains all the structural components of the role-playing game identified by D. B. Elkonin: role (defining component), game actions, game use of objects, real relationships.

In theatrical games, a game action and a game object, a costume or a doll, are of greater importance, as they facilitate the child's acceptance of a role that determines the choice of play actions. Game action can be of a different nature. In the director's game, the child is simultaneously an "actor", who plays the roles of each character in sequence, and a "director", who controls the plot twists "from above".

"Role" means a person or animal that exhibits typical manifestations; game image, rather, the result of the image of a particular person in a particular game and at a certain time.

The characteristic features of a theatrical game are the literary or folklore basis of the content and the presence of spectators (L.V. Artemova, L.V. Voroshina, L.S. Furmina, etc.). Theatrical games are a "frontier" type of activity associated with literary and artistic creativity (A. N. Leontiev), in which the emphasis is shifted from the process of the game to its result. This is a kind of artistic activity, consisting of three stages: perception, performance and creativity (N.A. Vetlugina).

In a theatrical game, the image of the hero, his main features, actions, experiences are determined by the content of the work. The creativity of the child is manifested in the truthful portrayal of the character. To do this, you need to understand what the character is like, why he does it, imagine his state, feelings, be able to analyze and evaluate actions. This largely depends on the experience of the child: the more diverse his impressions of the life around him, the richer his imagination, feelings, and ability to think.
Preparedness for a theatrical game can be defined as a level of general cultural development, on the basis of which the understanding of a work of art is facilitated, an emotional response to it arises, artistic means of conveying an image are mastered (S. A. Kozlova, T.A. Kulikova).

In the very nature of a theatrical game (showing a performance), its connections with a role-playing game (playing a theater) are laid, which makes it possible to unite children with a common idea, experiences, rally on the basis of an interesting activity that allows everyone to show activity, individuality, creativity.

The older the children become, the higher the level of development, the more valuable the theatrical game (pedagogically directed) for the formation of amateur forms of behavior, where it becomes possible to outline the plot or organize games with rules, find partners, choose means to realize their ideas (D. V. Mendzheritskaya).
Theatrical games of preschoolers cannot be called art in the full sense of the word, but they approach it. B.M. Teplov saw in them a transition from acting to dramatic art, but in an embryonic form. When playing a performance, the activities of children and real artists have much in common. Children also care about impressions, the reaction of the audience, they think about the impact on people, they care about the result (as depicted). The educational value of theatrical games lies in the active pursuit of creative performance (S.A. Kozlova, T.A. Kulikova).

Drawing the attention of parents to these games, emphasizing the success of the child, you can help revive the family tradition of home theater. Rehearsals, making costumes, scenery, invitation tickets for relatives unite family members, fill life with meaningful activities, joyful expectations. It is advisable to advise parents to use the experience of the child's artistic and theatrical activities acquired by him in a preschool institution. This increases the level of self-esteem of the child, he feels his importance in the family, erudition (Kozlova S.A., Kulikova T.A.).

Questions:
1. Give the concept of "theatrical game of preschoolers."
2. What does the concept of "preparedness for a theatrical game" include.
Assignment for independent work:
Make a plan for a conversation with parents on the topic "The role of parents in preparing a child for theatrical activities in kindergarten and at home.

Learn more

• 
  I need my mama
• 
  When should my child read
• 
  Kindergarten vowels worksheet
• 
  French reading games for kids
• 
  Dra reading levels grade
• 
  Long and short vowels o
• 
  Buzz and fly guy
• 
  Describing words for objects
• 
  Creative nonfiction short stories
• 
  How to teach toddlers colors and shapes
• 
  Math for pre kindergarten