Why is play important to your child
Play is a vital part of your child’s development. Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. For young children, play and learning are one and the same, they cannot be differentiated.
Through play, important brain development is established. Play is not a break from or a reward for learning- Play is Learning!
Dramatic Play journeyintoearlychildhood.com
Play is learning journeyintoearlychildhood.com
What is your child learning by playing?
Through child-directed, free-choice play,
- … children solve problems and pursue ideas
- … healthy connections are made in the brain
- … there is an increase in academic skills as noted in multiple research studies
- … children are learning how to learn- how to persist and persevere through challenges.
- … creative and critical thinking are developed
- … social skills such as collaboration, turn-taking, and conflict resolution are developed
- … emotional skills such as empathy and self-control increase significantly
- … children engage in science, engineering, and math skills including hypothesizing, experimenting, testing and concluding
- … vocabulary and language skills grow
Dramatic Play
There is documented research that demonstrates
the high level of cognitive, social, and emotional benefits
from children’s engagement in dramatic play.
Social/Emotional Skills:
- Sharing
- Cooperating
- Building empathy as they take on the role of someone else
- Solving social problems
- Building of compromise
- Persisting
Critical Thinking Skills:
- Expressing their creativity
- Flexibility in thinking
- Connections of experiences and learning
- Problem-solving
- Predicting
Academic Skills:
- Storytelling
- One to one correspondence
- Thinking symbolically
- Writing to convey meaning (treatment plan, check-up form, pet information)
- Identification of letters/numbers/shapes
Communication Skills
- Using an expressive vocabulary- often will use more complex vocabulary such as in this center, we may hear them saying words such as examination, stethoscope, illness, fractured, etc.
- Engaging in turn-taking conversation
Dramatic Play Ideas for Home that
Include VERY Little Set-Up or Supplies…
- Build a fort, cave, or shelter
- Supply Ideas:
- Two chairs and a blanket
- Big box
- Suggestions:
- Let your child’s imagination soar as he/she decides what the shelter will become and what is happening outside of the shelter.
- Is it a cave near an ocean? Can you find seashells near the cave, go swimming, lay on the beach, dig up calms and cook them over a fire?
- Is it a bear cave? Read books such as Bear Snores On, Bear Can’t Sleep or Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson and have your child design the cave and then react the story or make up their own using the same characters.
- Are they on the island of lost boys with Peter Pan and it is a hideout from the pirates?
- Are they stranded on an island?
- Is it Rapunzel’s tower?
- Is it Elsa’s ice fort?
- Forts also allow your child space to be alone, to chill, to read, to play with puzzles, etc.
- Window Washer
- Supply Ideas
- Spray bottle with water
- Rag
- Paper to schedule appointments
- Phone (not plugged in)
- Suggestions
- Call to make an appointment with the window washer, have your child keep a schedule of appointments.
- Give him/her a spray bottle with water and a cloth and allow him/her to clean your windows.
- Don’t forget to have your child write a receipt and for you to pay. Do you need change? How much change?
- Basic Home Living and Grocery Store
Let your child’s imagination take off while taking on the role of mom, dad, brother, baby, dishwasher repair person, mail carrier, etc. in a basic home set up- add a grocery store for some extra fun and creativity
- Supply ideas
Add a grocery store to the kitchen play area Learning through Play journeyintoearlychildhood.com
Washing Machine and Dryer Learning through Play journeyintoearlychildhood.com
Learning through Play journeyintoearlychildhood.com
Learning through Play journeyintoearlychildhood.com
Change kitchen area into a restaurant Learning through Play journeyintoearlychildhood.com
Learning through Play journeyintoearlychildhood.com
- Bowls, spoons, pots, plates, etc.
- Empty big boxes to become the stove, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer
- Bottle caps, corks, shells or jar lids with letters of the alphabet written on them to become food- “Can you bake me cookies that spell your name?”
- Old clothes, old iron or iron not plugged in
- Paper to write grocery lists and recipes
- Cookbook
- Empty and clean up food containers (cereal boxes, egg carton, cracker box, oatmeal container)
- Suggestions:
- Add a grocery store by setting up empty and clean food containers (tin cans, boxes, water bottles)
- Turn the home living area into a restaurant by adding some menus and paper for ordering. You can use take out menus but even better is to allow your child to make his/her own menu- drawing pictures is great! There is no need to force writing – if your child is developmentally ready to start adding in some words, they can even start with just the beginning letter.
Open-Ended Questions to Expand Children’s Play in a Dramatic Play Center:
- What do you need to… * How is it different than…
- How is it the same as… * What else can you do with…
- What would happen now/ next if… * What is your plan…
- How would you describe… * How many different ways…
- I notice…. Tell me more…. * How does someone know…
Home Learning – Dramatic Play Suggestions: PRINTABLE VERSION FREE DOWNLOAD
NOTE: Response sheets where students are illustrating or writing an idea based on a response to a prompt from a piece of literature, such as draw the setting or draw your favorite part of the story OR a documentation sheet, data collection sheet or “lab report” where information from science observations or data is begin recorded are NOT considered worksheets. Worksheets typically have one correct answer such as “circle all of pictures that start with the letter H” or “underline the words that rhyme with car.”
Journey into Early Childhood 