Dramatic play preschoolers

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:

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25+ Dramatic Play Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

You are here: Home / Dramatic Play / 25+ Dramatic Play Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

June 9, 2018 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: Providing dramatic play activities is a great way to engage toddlers and preschoolers in role playing. Social skills are strengthened as the children interact with one another, too!

Let’s hear it for play! These dramatic play ideas for toddlers and preschoolers are open ended and fun!

Pretend play is an important part of children’s development. They learn by imagining and doing. If you stand back and observe children involved in pretend play, they are often mimicking what they’ve seen adults do. We take all of this into consideration when planning what to place in our dramatic play area.

• How will it be meaningful?
• What props will work best?
• How should it be organized?

The dramatic play area is also a great place to build communication skills, also. Dialogue is created as children are part of the pretend play.

In this post I’ve selected over 25 different dramatic play activities that can be done anytime of the year.

Before I begin sharing this collection, it’s important for new teachers to know that they do not need to change out their dramatic play center with each theme. It takes time to build a collection of materials (see our favorites at the end of this post). You can easily keep your dramatic play area stocked with a few staples.

Flower Market (with Printables)

The Garden Shop (Pre-Kinders)

Pumpkin Stand

Apple Stand

Honeybee Stand (Planning Playtime)

Winter Bear Cave Dramatic Play

Post Office

Movie Theater (Research Parent)

Zoo Animals (Teaching Mama)

Veterinarian Office (with Printables)

Bird’s Nest (Creekside Learning)

What’s the Weather? (Pre-K Pages)

Space (Catch a Star Ideas)

Spaghetti Shop (Where Imagination Grows)

Pizzeria

Ice Cream Shop (Learning 4 Kids)

Chinese Restaurant (Pre-K Pages)

Bakery (Pre Kinders)

The Taco Bar (The Mama Workshop)

Donut Shop (Sara J Creations)

Doll Diaper Station (Happy Hooligans)

Our Babies (Teach Preschool)

Baby Nursery (Pre-K Pages)

Making Pancakes (The Imagination Tree)

Tea Party

Hair Salon (Pre-K Pages)

Pet Grooming Salon (Sunny Day Family)

Grocery Store (Paper and Glue)

Clothing Store (Pre-K Tweets)

You can find more dramatic play activities on my Pinterest board.

• Our Favorite Toddler Learning Centers and How to Set Them Up
• How to Set Up Preschool Learning Centers

• How to Set Up Learning Centers
• How to Handle Preschoolers Not Using Certain Centers
• Tips on Managing the Toddler and Preschool Block Center
• Putting Together Table Activities During Centers Time

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Filed Under: Dramatic Play, preschool, Toddlers Tagged With: dramatic play, preschool, printables, toddlers

About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 20 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

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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.

Game. Great Russian Encyclopedia

Game, an activity that is carried out according to voluntarily accepted rules in conditional situations, set in a symbolic form in a limited time and space (for example, a playing field or a monitor screen). The special mental attitude of the player, who both believes and does not believe in the reality of the situation being played, makes the game related to dramatic art: the central element of the game is the role taken by the player. In addition to real relations in the game, game relations arise between its participants in accordance with the accepted roles. An obligatory component of the game is imagination, the exit of consciousness beyond the obvious reality of life. Most games involve the use of special game items, often acting as symbolic substitutes for imaginary elements of a real or fantastic situation modeled in the game.

The game is studied by philosophers, cultural historians, ethnographers and anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, historians of religion, art historians, sports and military researchers. In mathematical game theory, models of decision making in conflict situations are developed.

In traditional societies, the game was inextricably linked with rituals, art (including early forms of dramatic art), sports, etc. It is believed that the game has an instinctive source: it is also characteristic of higher animals (primarily predators, primates , dolphins) who also use it for pleasure, simulation of real situations (for example, hunting, conflict), learning and transferring experience; The games of infants are the same among different peoples.

The game develops and improves the management of one's own behavior, socialization takes place. The game provides an individual with the opportunity to expand his social experience, satisfy needs through the symbolic realization of those states and roles that are not actualized in his everyday life. The game is a means of psychological preparation for future life situations and a means of modeling conflicts, the solution of which is difficult in reality (this is the basis, in particular, of game psychotherapy). In the game, a person gets the opportunity to relieve various life stresses by creating artificial game tension and appropriate relaxation. To do this, the game turns on the mechanism of competition, rivalry (the game beginning in the form of competition is present in many forms of culture: festivals and tournaments, lawsuits, scientific disputes, sports, etc.). As a model of conflict, the game easily turns into a form of expression of social contradictions (for example, the transformation of “fans” at the hippodrome into political parties in medieval Byzantium).

Play in ethnology and cultural anthropology

Play in ethnology and cultural anthropology is treated as a broad phenomenon, including all types of activities that have game elements. Usually distinguish entertainment and ritual games. The former are a form of leisure both in the family circle and in public places. The latter are part of ritual actions and are divided into those associated with calendar rites and those that accompany transitional rites. Most games are built on rivalry and competitiveness both between individuals and between teams, including those belonging to different social formations (related, ethnic, territorial, gender, age, professional, etc.). The participants of the game can compete in sports exercises, poetic art, solving riddles, wit, the ability to keep from laughing, eat more than the opponent, etc. Games are also divided into role-playing, imitation, group, individual, etc.

Play in the history of philosophy

Play in the history of philosophy was considered as the most important phenomenon of human existence. In Indian religious thought, the concept of the world as a divine game (Sanskrit - lila) is widespread. Heraclitus likens the eon to a "playing child". Plato, calling a person “some kind of fictitious toy of God”, saw the meaning of his life in living by playing “the most beautiful games”, which include sacrifices, songs, dances and battles with enemies (“Laws” 803 cd). The aesthetic aspect of the game was the focus of German classical philosophy and Jena romanticism. Thus, according to I. Kant, “the free play of cognitive abilities” (imagination and reason) underlies the aesthetic pleasure postulated in the judgment of taste. The concept of the game and the “aesthetic education of a person” associated with it became fundamental in the philosophical and anthropological concept of F. Schiller: “... a person plays only when he is a person in the full sense of the word, and he is completely human only when he plays” (Collected works. M., 1957. T. 6. S. 302). F. Schleiermacher considered the game as a sphere of free play of fantasy, where a person has the opportunity to optimally realize his individuality and inner freedom.

The image of the future culture, which contains its own parody, appears in F. Nietzsche as a “seductive” and “risky” ideal of the spirit playing “with everything that has hitherto been called sacred, good, inviolable, divine” (“Merry Science ", § 382). The genetic connection between art and play was noted in the positivist concepts of the origin of art (for example, in the theory of syncretic primitive art and the origin of art from ritual and "action" by A. N. Veselovsky and others). In the fundamental work of J. Huizinga "Homo ludens" (1938, rus. per. 1992), which provides an overview of all human culture from the point of view of play, highlights the playful aspects of not only religious cults, art, festivities, sports, but also philosophy, justice, war, politics. The utopian novel The Glass Bead Game (vols. 1-2, 1943) by H. Hesse was a kind of artistic implementation of Huizinga's concept and Schiller's idea of ​​an "aesthetic state". The German philosopher O. Fink considered the game as one of the main primordial phenomena of human existence along with death, labor, domination and love. M. M. Bakhtin analyzed the playful element of the folk marketplace laughter culture, the most striking expression of which is carnival festivities, when “playing for a while becomes life itself”. In the last third of the 20th century the humanities of a postmodernist orientation, actively interlocking with the artistic practice of the avant-garde, are increasingly acquiring a playful character. The principle of the game formed the basis of the deconstruction method by J. Derrida.

Psychological concepts

Psychological concepts of play appear in the 2nd half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. G. Spencer saw in the game a manifestation of "an excess of strength", pointing to imitation as the source of the game and exercise as its function. The German philosopher and psychologist K. Gross created the theory of play in animals, in which he saw the adaptation (“warning”) of instincts to the conditions of a future life. K. Buhler emphasized that the desire to play, to repeat the same actions, is supported by the “functional pleasure” from the play activity itself. In contrast to Gross, the Dutch psychologist F. Buitendijk believed that the basis of the game is not individual instincts, but more general drives: to liberation, to merge with others and to repeat; the game is always associated with some subject that contains a lot of novelty. In the psychoanalysis of Z. Freud, the game was considered as the realization of desires in a symbolic form. In the studies of J. Piaget, the game was studied in the context of the development of children's intelligence and symbolic functions. D. B. Elkonin considered children's games as a form of including the child in the activities and relationships of adults, which children reproduce in their games.

Game is the main way of interaction of a child with the world, his way to development and cognition of the surrounding reality, intellectual, moral, strong-willed and physical qualities of children develop in the game, their personality is formed. Many children's games are national in nature and are passed down from generation to generation. There are manipulation games for children under 3 years old, story games (role-playing, directorial and dramatization games), mobile and educational games. In the process of manipulation games for toddlers, adults teach them object actions, introduce them to the shape, color, and purpose of objects. The plot games of preschoolers begin with role-playing ones, in which children take on the roles of an adult, an animal, a car, etc. Toys, household items, materials included in the game become symbols that replace objects from the adult world, which contributes to the development of the child’s thinking and imagination . In role-playing games that remain in children until adolescence, they learn to act according to the rules, negotiate, argue, command, obey, and participate in conflict resolution. In director's games, children usually assign roles to toys and act for them. In dramatization games, children 4–9years, they reproduce in theatrical form the content of films, television programs, and literary works. Outdoor games in children under 4 years of age are imitative in nature, from 3–4 years old children compete in running, jumping, throwing, etc. while playing. One of the most effective pedagogical means is educational games aimed at giving the child new knowledge about the world. A large place in children's games is occupied by the manufacture of toys, homemade games, drawing and other forms of children's creativity.

The growing child largely replaces play with imagination, transferring it to the inner plane. “Serious games” (V. Stern) of adolescents occupy an intermediate place between the game of a child and the activities of adults (“game of love”, erotic fantasies, friendship and enmity, colored by the affectivity characteristic of children's play, the creation of various unions, circles and societies). The game has taken a special place in the areas related to computer and network technologies, virtual reality and virtual communication, forming special gaming subcultures among teenagers.

Elements of the game also permeate modern adult life, manifesting themselves, for example, in the economy (“stock games”), in education (“business games”), in diplomacy and politics (“political games”), social work (psychological training). Sports games and competitions (Olympic Games, world championships, etc.

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