Pretend Play/Dramatic Play/Dress Up; They are all the same thing. Its taking the theme you picked for the week and having your kids play with it in the physical space you have planned for it.
As a parents the most obvious thing is Play Kitchen. In my person opinion, its the best thing to have in your house, condo, apt. Whatever space you have for you kids during this hard time, its getting them ( or making them) a play kitchen. You can make it fun and exciting a million different ways. I know I have. No matter what the theme, you can make a kitchen out of it. The picture below is someone who found a used old dress or cabinet and turned it into a kitchen.
You can even make things out of cardboard if you cant afford anything else. Just be creative. I will do another post about cardboard and its potential. Look out for that.
Examples:
- Around the World Theme: Turn it into a different cultures restaurant. Chinese food, Mexican Food, Italian, Pizzeria, Fancy or Casual. Its up to you.
- Camping: I used camping in my last blog, so i will do a quick idea for it. Turn the kitchen into a BBQ joint.
- Zoo: turn it into a food stand like they have seen at the zoo when you go.
- Beach: same thing, turn it into a beach food stand.
The list goes on and on. If you need help with any ideas, leave a comment and ill get back to you.
Now for other kinds of pretend play things. I have been fortunate to have found tones of things i need for my pretend play areas, and all for less than 10.00. Targets Bullseye section and the Dollar Tree. They have plenty of small items that are cheap and simple to use towards achieving my goal in creating pretend play areas. Starter list: Baskets, baby supplies, bins, cooking utensils, pretend flowers, hair brushes and accessories, etc.
During the changing of the seasons, its good to get anything that can help with any season themes your going to do. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentines day, etc. Make that into a center to play with.
Something to think about making or finding if you can, is some sort of cube or toy storage (like my idea storage in the pictures) and you can switch it out to anything with your themes as well. Or even find some crates and glue them together.
The two pictures I have up at the start of this post are the Beach Stand I made during Beach week this summer. Got some shelves, Dollar Tree pool toys, got the kids registers, and put out a sign. Wala you got a Beach Rental Stand.
The second picture was the Check in Desk for our pretend airport. Brought out our family suitcases, our old broken laptops, and made a sign. It wasn’t the biggest hit with my kids. I ended up turning it back into their play kitchen and made it into an airport café. With Airport, you can go to Costco, ask for a few of the cardboard in between the water bottles and make an area into a pretend plane. I didn’t have the time to go get one from Costco, but i know what to do next time.
Now I know its a lot to think about, but our children need us. This kind of stuff should be easy to do and a lot of fun to play with.
If you are using the same program as I am using, they pretty much give you the ideas for the dramatic play area. They even give you free instructions of what to find. If you dont like what htey have, think of something else. THE SKY IS THE LIMIT!!!!
Good Luck!!!!!
The TAWL Mom 