What Is Dramatic Play?
My dramatic play area is my favorite part of my classroom! I could spend hours setting it up and I love playing in it with my students. Dramatic play is a type of play where you give a child props or a “mini environment” to act out a role, for example a doctor’s office. There are so many benefits of this type of play and as you watch them play, you will learn a lot about your students as well. So now you know what it is, what is the importance of dramatic play in preschool?
Dramatic Play In Preschool Promotes Social-Emotional Skills
When children play together and are given the freedom to explore, they learn to take turns and share. It isn’t always easy and takes time for young children to learn these things and it takes a lot of patience and training on the teacher’s part. Dramatic play in preschool also helps students express their emotions and share ideas. Dramatic play is important in child development because it is a great opportunity to teach children how to resolve conflict, cooperation and self regulate their behavior and emotions.
Dramatic Play In Preschool Promotes Creativity
Dramatic play, whether it is a simple set up or a more elaborate part of the classroom, can promote creativity in many ways. It is very interesting to listen to the students as they play. You may learn a lot about your students as they express themselves during play. This type of play also often times leads to creative thinking and storytelling. My kindergarten class this year is a very animated group, I often have to laugh at the scenarios they create when they are playing. When the set up is very simple with just a few props, it encourages students to use their imaginations and creativity.
Dramatic Play In Preschool Promotes Literacy and Math Skills
Perhaps the greatest importance of dramatic play in preschool is there are so many skills that can be learned and practiced through play. Depending on the theme and tasks you use in the dramatic play area, there can be many opportunities for fine motor and eye hand coordination practice. In a kitchen area, you can have tongs for fine motor and containers for pouring and scooping.
Dramatic play areas are the perfect place to practice numbers, counting and money. The teacher can provide play paper money and coins, and even scales for practice! If you choose to set up a store or market, children can pay for their items and the “cashiers” can give change.
In your apple or pumpkin market you can have a place for students to weigh produce on scales. What time does your shop open? Set a clock to show the time your shop opens and closes. There are so many real life learning opportunities during dramatic play in preschool.
Label everything! As they play in your area, they should be exposed to an abundance of words. Label the baking tools, the oven and the sink. In your jungle dramatic play area label everything you can, the animal, the trees, the vines and anything else The teacher can set up so many opportunities for reading, writing, spelling and vocabulary skills to be used in dramatic play. Children can write receipts, which encourages writing and spelling, create or use menus or write reports depending on the theme.
Dramatic Play In Preschool Promotes Empathy and Understanding
Depending on what you set up, you can give the children opportunities to learn to care for others, understand others and empathy for others. It is interesting and fun to watch as young children care for patients in the doctor’s office, hospital, or vet’s office. In Winter, I set up an Artic Zoo and the children love to feed and groom the animals. Some act as the vets and take care of the sick animals. I love to set up multi cultural play areas, for example a Chinese New Years celebration in January which exposes the students to another culture and traditions which gives them an understanding of people that are from a different culture than themselves.
Creating Experiences For Young Learners
Have you ever milked a cow? There are many experiences we will never have in real life, but it is so fun to simulate these experiences for students! When we were studying farms, I created a farm dramatic play which included an area for the students to milk a cow. It was just a plastic glove filled with water attached to a large cut out of a cow. I put a small pin hole in the glove and let the children milk the cow into a small pan. They had a blast! You can read one of my first blog posts here and see the other fun habitats I set up for my kindergartners. They loved exploring the swamp and fishing in the ocean, farming the fields and spotting animals in the jungle. You can see more of our habitats here.
Encouraging Interests and Inspiring Students
Exposing students to new things and experiences is one of the great joys of teaching. When I was a much younger teacher, a had a large classroom while my building was being renovated. I wanted to do something with all the space in the classroom, so I put up a tent and created a lunar exploration station for my second graders. One particular student loved the dramatic play area and it fueled his love of space exploration.
Today, many years later he is working in Mission Control at NASA and was involved in the recent Artemis mission. The dramatic play area was such a huge success that it grew over the years and we converted an old school bus into a space shuttle and ended up in the New York City ticker tape parade when John Glenn returned to Earth after his shuttle mission. More about that in another post soon !
There are so many possibilities for learning with dramatic play and I hope I have shown the importance of dramatic play in preschool and even any elementary classroom. My hope is that you have been inspired to try dramatic play in your preschool class and that you will share what you have done in your classroom ! Have fun !
– Jeanne
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