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According to a Soviet psychologist, Lev Semyonovish Vygotsky, dramatic play for toddlers promotes emotional, cognitive, and social development (1). When children are two to three years old, they show their interests in various activities such as dressing up like you or repeating what you show and wish to be a part of the adult world. That’s why they try to imitate their parents and other family members and enjoy the dramatic play. Keep reading this post to understand its significance and let your child try out a few play ideas.
Why Is Dramatic Play Important For Toddlers?
Dramatic play or pretend play helps build toddlers’ social, thinking, and language skills (2). Engaging your children in dramatic play activities is therefore vital in their preschool years.
Did you know?How To Encourage Dramatic Play In Toddlers?
Encouraging your toddler to pretend play involves you getting down to your child’s level and playing like them. Here are a few tips to help stimulate their pretending skills (3).
- Observe your child’s interests.
- Sit face-to-face so they can see you and follow your actions.
- Take the lead in case your toddler does not know how to play it.
- Avoid giving too many options at once that may confuse them.
- Take an active part in the play or skit with your child to encourage them.
- Expose your toddler to various new experiences as they can be material for play pretend wherever they go.
27 Dramatic Play Ideas For Toddlers and Preschoolers
1. Grocery store
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Pretending to manage a grocery store will help develop communication skills in your toddler. You can start by clearing some shelves in your toddler’s playroom to replicate shelves of the store. For the groceries, you can use empty cereal boxes or plastic play food available in the market. You will also need some grocery bags and a cash register.
Let your little one be the storekeeper, and you can be the customer coming into their store for shopping. Later, you may reverse these roles.
2. Flower market
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Gather a few artificial flowers from in and around your home and place them in different containers. You can also create some signs on paper and hang them to give it an authentic feel of a flower shop.
3. Science Lab
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Pretend science lab is about mixing things that are safe to mix. The most common thing you will need for the science lab is water and a few safe-to-use kitchen tools. You may also put a few drops of food coloring in the water to make it authentic. A lab coat and safety goggles are fun additions to the play!
Do remember4. Coffee shop
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Grab a few cups, some play coins, and doodle a menu card for your toddler’s coffee shop. You can give them some foam to be used as coffee. If you plan to have a foamed cappuccino on the menu, you can cut some brown paper into small pieces and use it like foam. Get your aprons, and the coffee shop is open for service. Your child can have a wonderful time if you are involved in playing with them. Engage in dialogue with questions like, “How much for the cappuccino?”, “Do you have any day-old baked goods for sale?”, and “May I use my own mug?”
5. Pizza parlor
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You will need a few paper plates, crayons, sticky back foam, scissors, and pizza boxes for a pizza parlor. Cut the foam into different vegetable shapes for use as toppings. The paper plates can be used as a base for the pizza and the crayons as the sauce. You can also use cardboard boxes to make an oven. Then, call in and place an order so they can make pizzas for you.
6. Airplane voyage
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Traveling is something that may excite anyone. So, when traveling is not possible, you can pretend play with airplane voyages. For this, you will need some chairs, a few pieces of paper, and a backpack. Let your toddler make boarding passes from the paper while you mark seat numbers on the chairs and create a ticket counter. Grab an atlas and select your travel destination and write it on your boarding passes. Get to the counter, show your boarding pass and your passport and reach your respective seats. You can turn their toys into fellow passengers and be the flight attendant yourself. Bon Voyage!
7. Tea party
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You can have tea parties with your children on special occasions or weekends for a wonderful time with each other. Set up the table with mini ceramic cups, play pastries, and cake. You can also arrange a mixer for baking to have lots of fun. Do not forget to keep some aprons ready for the bakers. Toddlers can also invite their toy friends over for a tea party.
8. Santa’s elf workshop
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Who doesn’t love Santa and the chance to become an elf working in Santa’s workshop?. Clear out a table and set up different stations for the workshop, including a toy testing station, a wrapping station, and a delivery station. You can also use some of their toys as gifts and put them in the stations to be wrapped and sent to Santa so that he can deliver them to the children on Christmas.
Quick tip9. Library play
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Make a cute reading area in a cozy corner of your house. Set up a table near the reading area and make a register to note the books borrowed and returned to and from the library. You can also make an index card to place inside the library’s books and mark them when your child takes them for reading. You can also reverse the roles of the librarian with your child after a few times.
10. Ice cream shop
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Working at an ice cream shop is fun. First, clear the table and set up an ice cream counter for your child. Next, use colored pom-poms for ice cream scoops and make cones using brown paper. Finally, to add variety to the play, you can add small paper cups and plastic spoons to serve delicious ice cream.
11. Pirate ship
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Grab an empty laundry basket, a few party streamers, a paper bag, sticky back foam, wrapping paper tube, and scissors. On the inside of a paper bag, draw a sail and cut it out with the help of scissors. In the meantime, let your toddler decorate the mast (wrapping paper tube) of the sail. You can also use some party streamers to decorate the sides of the boat. Finally, tape the sail to the mast of the boat and attach it to the sailboat.
12. Cupcake bakery
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We all love cupcakes with pretty frosting and colorful sprinkles. This activity will help toddlers learn about colors and shapes. For this activity, you will need colored dough, cupcake liners, cookie cutters, cutting boards, and colorful sprinkles. Your toddler can mix and match doughs of different colors to make the cupcakes look interesting. After the dough is ready, cut it into different shapes and sizes using a cookie cutter and decorate it with sprinkles.
13. Vet’s office
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Transforming your toddler’s playroom into a vet’s clinic by placing some stuffed animals as puppets and a doctor’s kit is a great way to introduce them to puppetry, a form of theater that involves the manipulation of puppets. Pretend to be a pet owner and visit the clinic with your stuffed pet animal. Describe your pet’s illness to the little doctor and let them examine your pet. Engage in conversation topics such as what symptoms the pet has, if the pet is healthy or sick, what the pet eats regularly, and how long the pet sleeps. These types of puppetry performances also help hone their communication skills and imagination.
Fun fact14. Junior detective
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All you will need for your toddler detective play are some household items and a few pieces of paper. Write down clues on the paper and hide them in different places of the house, leading to the hidden prize at the end. You might need several participants for this activity as one adult will need to help your child read the clues. You may also try picture clues. Let your toddler put on their detective glasses and search the entire house. This activity helps improve their brain functioning and emotional skills and involves physical movement.
15. Perfume factory
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Making perfumes may help your toddlers develop their fine motor skills. All you need for this activity are some bottles, water, and flowers. Pour water into the bottles and head out to the garden. Pluck various flower petals, put them into the water, leave them to infuse, so the perfumes are ready.
16. Doctor’s chamber
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Turn your toddler’s playroom into a doctor’s chamber by placing a table, a chair, and an apron. Use their toys as patients. Then, let the little doctor use the handy doctor play kit to examine you and prescribe your medicines. Talk about what is healthy and what are signs of illness to make the play more engaging.
Mrs. V Urquhart, a kindergarten teacher, shares her experience of organizing a dramatic play in the classroom. She says, “Recently, our house center was transformed into a doctor’s office. After reading a Berenstain Bears book about going to the doctors, we made a list of all of the items our doctor’s office would need. Next, we moved around the furniture to create a waiting room, a basket of books to read while waiting, a patient bed, a measuring and eye chart, and lots of doctor tools.
“An important part of the kindergarten program is to create meaningful opportunities for literacy and numeracy within the children’s activity centers. I decided that a great way to get kids reading and writing with a real purpose is to have sign in sheets for them to fill out when they arrive. Before they sit in the waiting room, each child ‘signs in’ by filling out the following form. Once the form is complete, they sit in the chairs until a doctor calls them over. Together, the patient and the doctor read the form and then the doctor ‘fixes’ them…usually with the help of a blanket and/or a needle (i)!”
17. Gardening
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You will only need two things for this activity, Styrofoam and decorative flowers. Give these to your toddler and let them plant a beautiful garden. Then, ask them to stick the flowers onto the Styrofoam, and their garden is ready. You can also perform this activity with your toddler so that they can learn from you. There can also be multiple teachable moments during the play where you can guide your toddler.
18. Camping
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Camping lets children engage in cooperative play and also learn problem-solving skills. You will need some wrapping paper roll, orange- and red-colored papers, double stick tape, scissors, and a brown marker to perform the camping play. Add brown color to the paper, or you could use the wrapping paper roll as a make-believe log for the fire. Cut the colored paper to form the flames of fire. Place the double stick tape on the logs and let your child stick the flames to them. Stick all the logs together, and your campfire is ready. Also, don’t forget to pack some snacks for the camping trip.
19. Making Gingerbread man
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Making gingerbread men is a fun activity that can keep your little one engaged for a long time. You will need foam gingerbread, googly eyes, gingerbread cookie cutters, and cookie sheets. You can turn the kitchen counter into a gingerbread-making station and enjoy this activity with your child.
20. Toy store owner
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For this one, you can bring out all the toys. Clear out some shelves and arrange different toys in the store. You can also write prices for the toys on small pieces of paper, and the toy store is open for sale. You can visit the toy store as a customer to buy some toys with fake money.
21. Managing a restaurant
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You can sometimes turn dinner time into playtime. Become the chef and let your toddler be your executive. Plan the menu, the meal, set the table, and your at-home restaurant is ready for service.
22. Art gallery/Museum
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Hand out a few sheets of paper and some crayons to your little one and let them draw some masterpieces. Later on, hang these drawings in a room and turn them into an art gallery. Get tickets for you and your family members to this art gallery because it is not something that you would want to miss. Also, when others meet the artist in person, it would be exciting for your little one.
23. Ruling a kingdom
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Does your child aspire to be a ruler and rule a kingdom? So why not make it happen. You can make a crown using chart paper and decorate it with beads and stones. Turn their playroom into a kingdom and their stuffed toys into ministers. All hail the new ruler.
Point to consider24. Post office
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You do not need any extravagant space to set up a pretend post office for your little one. Just set up a table and a chair in the corner of a room and the post office is ready. Let all the family members write letters to each other and submit them to the post office. A little mail carrier will be arriving at your place with these sweet letters soon.
25. Go fishing
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You can use the couch as a boat and take your toddler fishing with the help of a string tied to a long wooden stick. First, cut a few colored pieces of paper in different sizes of fish and spread them on the mat in front of them. Then, with the help of the fishing rod, catch as many fish as you can.
26. Teddy bear hunt
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Hide some of your toddler’s teddy bears in different places of the house and leave around a few clues for them to find. Then, after they have found all the hidden teddy bears, leave a clue for an interesting surprise gift (can be their favorite candy or cookie) towards the end of the hunt.
Dramatic play for toddlers enhances their imagination and creativity. It may help them learn basic storytelling and social interaction skills, and make friends in the classroom. Dramatic play can also tune young children’s gross and fine motor skills and foster improvisation in their language skills. Choosing role-plays related to daily life situations can help them know how to respond to particular situations and how to interact with people in various situations. Thus, you may introduce dramatic plays of various themes for toddlers to have a wonderful time.
27. Baby nursery
Create an imaginative nursery for your children and let them manage everything as a team. The children can use dolls, blankets, and toy bottles to act out activities like feeding and changing diapers. This make-believe play helps children learn about caring for others and empathy. It boosts their social skills while having fun. It is a fun way for children to be creative and practice communication and teamwork. Taking care of baby dolls helps them understand responsibilities. Through this activity, children also develop language skills and problem-solving skills. So, grab some baby dolls and let your child’s imagination run wild.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What age does dramatic play begin?
You may begin dramatic play, including imitating actions and dressing up with simple toys such as dolls in toddlers as early as 18 months old. However, choose age-appropriate toys to boost your child’s interests. Furthermore, children near the four to five-year mark are most interested in various dramatic play activities (4). Encouraging pretend play for kids at this age can enhance their imagination and help them understand the world around them.
2. Is dramatic play the same as pretend play?
Yes, dramatic play is also often called pretend or role play. It is known to be one of the most beneficial constructive play activities for children, which allows the exploration of a wide range of roles and situations (5).
3. How do I choose appropriate themes and topics for dramatic play with toddlers?
When selecting themes and topics for dramatic play with toddlers, it is essential to consider their developmental stage, interests, and abilities. Choose themes that are familiar to them, such as everyday activities or experiences they can relate to, like going to the grocery store or pretending to be a doctor. Incorporate their interests, whether animals, superheroes, or princesses, as it will engage them more effectively. Keep the themes simple and easy to understand, allowing them to use their imagination and creativity. Finally, consider their motor skills and provide props or materials that are safe and age-appropriate to enhance their play experience.
4. Are there any safety considerations when it comes to dramatic play with toddlers?
Yes, there are several safety considerations to follow during dramatic play with toddlers. Ensure the play area is free of sharp objects, small parts, or loose cords that could pose a choking or tripping hazard. Supervision may be necessary to prevent accidents or injury, especially when using props or materials that could be potentially harmful if misused. Additionally, be mindful of the size and weight of props, as toddlers may inadvertently hit or drop them, causing harm to themselves or others. Finally, establish clear guidelines and rules to promote safe and respectful play, emphasizing sharing, gentle actions, and communication to prevent any potential conflicts that could escalate.
Infographic: Things To Consider When Setting Up A Dramatic Play
Dramatic play is an excellent activity to help toddlers learn and express themselves. The tips in our infographic can guide you with the essential things to consider to set up a dramatic play at your convenience efficiently. Illustration: Momjunction Design Team
Key Pointers
- Dramatic play benefits a child’s social and physiological development as well as their overall growth.
- You can foster dramatic play by studying your child’s actions and acting as a role model for them.
- Science lab, pizza parlor, tea party, and several other dramatic play ideas in this post.
Illustration: Best Dramatic Play For Toddlers And Preschoolers
Image: Dall·E/MomJunction Design Team
Are you looking for establishing a thriving dramatic play learning center in your preschool? Look no further! Gain valuable insights on creating a successful play learning center in preschool from this video.
Personal Experience: Source
MomJunction articles include first-hand experiences to provide you with better insights through real-life narratives. Here are the sources of personal accounts referenced in this article.
i. The doctor is in.https://kindergartenatnewdundee.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/the-doctor-is-in/References
- Janine Hostettler Scharer Supporting young children’s learning in a dramatic play environment.
https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/17895 - Pretend play is important to kids’ development.
https://news.sanfordhealth.org/parenting/pretend-play-is-important-to-kids-development/ - The land of make-believe: how and why to encourage pretend play.
https://www.hanen.org/helpful-info/articles/the-land-of-make-believe.aspx - Basic Abilities and Play Preferences: Birth to Age 12.
https://www.naturalchild.org/articles/research/ages_stages.html - The POWER OF PRETEND PLAY IN LANGUAGE & LITERACY LEARNING.
https://thegeniusofplay.org/genius/expert-advice/articles/the-power-of-pretend-play-in-language-and-literacy-learning.aspx#.YtosbXZBy3A
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