Kdg Dramatic Play Centers

at the beginning of the school year, i signed up to volunteer in a lot of areas in the kids' grades. one of the things that i signed up to do was to set up the kindergarten dramatic play centers. at first, i thought the kindergarteners were going to have a play and volunteers would help to set up the stage. this, however, turned out to be something completely different.

in the kindergarten wing of the kids' school, there are common areas called centers that are set up to allow all the kindergarteners to experience different types of learning. there's a reading center, a math center, a blocks center, and an art center. two of the areas are designated to be the dramatic play centers. these centers are set up as different scenarios to allow children to play pretend and foster their imagination. i, along with several other mothers, change these centers every 6 weeks to allow the kindergarteners to pretend to be different characters. at the beginning of the year, one of the centers is a travel agency and was filled with brochures, maps, and globes to allow the children to pretend to be travel agents and also learn about different parts of the world. the centers have evolved from a home setting, fire station, winter wonderland, and gift shop.

the most recent set up was a vet's office. there are lots of pretend medical equipment in the exam room on the left. there are robes for the kids to dress up to be a vet. the waiting room if filled with animal puzzles and books to learn about animals. we also set up a recovery room that's not visible in the picture for the children to care for the animals.

the other play center was transformed into a post office. there's even a pretend mailbox for the kids to mail their letters off. we've placed a directory, envelops and writing tools for the kids to learn to address envelops. there's a chart with valentine's vocabulary not shown in the picture for the kids to make valentines to send off to loved ones.

while we were taking down the old stuff and putting up the new ones, kids kept walking by whispering excitedly about what we are going to do next. it's so great that part of the curriculum in this school is to include such dynamic play for the children. i also love that i can be at school and participate in my children's learning experiences. nowadays, the kids and i are butting heads more and more as they mature and grow up more. i try to savor the moments when their eyes still light up at the sight of me while they are at school.