10/28/13

Dramatic Play Workshop

This weekend I was fortunate to present a workshop to my preschool teacher colleagues about the importance and nitty-gritties of setting up interesting dramatic play centers in our classrooms.  I always love collaborating with other teachers because I truly believe that teaching should not be a competition.  We need to work together to share best practices in order to benefit all of our children.

At Play to Learn, we plan to set up a new dramatic play center each month.  It usually stays up for about 3 weeks, and then we take a week "off" and return to the bare bones home living center.  The students need the break from the excitement of something new, and the teachers need a break from that excitement too! 

Since we are celebrating Halloween this week (and that means there is plenty of other excitement to keep us busy) our dramatic play center is back to its original state.

The kitchen furniture is Childcraft.  They were some of the first large pieces I bought for the preschool in 2005.  The appliances are set up in a U shape, and are connected by corner counters.  There are 4 main elements.

Stove/Oven:
You can see that there is also a wooden high chair that we leave out for the baby dolls.

Here is a picture of the inside of the oven.  We store the pots, pans, bowls and cookie sheets inside.  There are small 3M hooks on the inside of the doors for the oven mitts.

Next, the refrigerator.  Inside there are baskets full of food (that need to be sorted and relabeled before I will post a picture!).  We also have a little wooden microwave.  Underneath there is a pet food bowl and a stuffed dog.

The third piece is a sink.  I added a cute window bulletin board set, and of course there is a phone sitting next to it in case any of our kiddos need to make a call.

There is more storage in the cabinet under the sink.  That's where we keep the dishes, towels and utensils.  I try to label all the shelves and baskets so that the kiddos have an opportunity to put things back in their put-away places!
 

This hutch has 2 shelves.  We usually store our Melissa & Doug condiments and spices on them, but it transforms into the ice cream toppings counter when the ice cream parlor is set up.  (The demand for ketchup and mustard on ice cream is low!)

Inside the hutch we have small appliances: mixers, a coffee pot, toasters, and a blender.  Would anyone like a smoothie?

The other half of the dramatic play center is the dress-up closet.  This corner cabinet houses all of our hats, clothes and shoes. 

Behind the mirror there are 5 baskets with shelves full of funny money, purses, jewelry, neckties, and baby accessories.

During the workshop, I shared that we have planned to do a Nursery/ Baby care center, a Post Office, a Grocery Store, a Doctor's Office, an Airport, a Farm and a Camp-Out in the coming months.  Those will all be a ton of fun, but it's important that we return to the basics occasionally and just let the children "play house."

All of the signs and labels that I use in the dramatic play center are available as on TpT.  Head on over there and print them off for your classroom!

How is your dramatic play area set up?  I would love to hear some other ideas!  (And if you are one of the workshop gals visiting the site, be sure to leave a comment and say Hi!)

Enjoy playing and learning with your children this week.

3 comments:

  1. Where did you get your corner counters? Were they easy to install? I've been looking everywhere for some!

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  3. Anonymous5/06/2015

    Where can I find those cute table and chairs?

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