Dramatic Play

[DaycareMom]

I was wondering what you all did for dramatic play. Do you decide on one thing and have everyone participate? For example, everyone plays house or store, etc?

Or is it more of a free play? Susie and Julie playing house, Jon and Ben playing cars, Molly and Peter playing Barbies, etc?

[Leanna]

Dramatic play is always a choice during play time. Mine are always pretending throughout the day though - they are kitties and doggies in the morning when they first arrive, they are delivery drivers while riding their trikes outside, they are in the circus, at the zoo, going shopping, etc....it goes on and on. Yesterday they pretended the playhouse in our yard was on fire and they were firefighters putting out the fire and rescuing the babies. We have kitchen, dress-up, dolls, puppets, and finger puppets out all of the time, but they also pretend with animals, cars, even blankets! I only get involved of they ask me or there is a conflict. Otherwise I just watch their imaginations run wild .

[melilley]

Dramatic play is a choice here as well. I can't see making all the kids pretend to play one thing, that would not go over very well here!

[preschoolteacher]

I don't tell the kids what to play. Except, of course, if they're getting too rough or playing "hit each other with the toy kitchen utensils."

We have a set-up that encourages dramatic play... dress up clothes, toy car zone, toy kitchen zone, and so on. They are free to use it as they wish.

I like this approach for a lot of reasons, but especially because the kids use dramatic play to act out/understands things they are currently wondering about. For example, at drop-off today one mom mentioned her daughter needs a haircut, but they won't go back to the salon because she was afraid of the blow dryers. Then today in the playroom, the girl found the cash register toy that has a price scanner, and she used it to pretend to blowdry her hair. I think stuff like that is so cool!!