Children love to pretend. Whether it’s looking after a baby, making dinner for the family or fixing a problem in the house – when children are pretending to be anything they know and have observed in their daily lives this is what we call family or dramatic play.
BestStart is for families who want more from early-childhood education. Safe, nurturing and educationally focused, we’re committed to growing caring people with curious minds. Together we teach, learn and nurture.Our vision is to work in partnership with families, whanau and communities to enable children to achieve their learning potential.
Dramatic play is such a rich learning experience for children. They connect ideas about their everyday lives, they socialise and learn to cooperate with others and in this way build their communication skills as they choose roles and create stories together. Language, social and thinking skills are at the core of children’s family and dramatic play.
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Dramatic play is such a rich learning experience for children. They connect ideas about their everyday lives, they socialise and learn to cooperate with others and in this way build their communication skills as they choose roles and create stories together. Language, social and thinking skills are at the core of children’s family and dramatic play.
Dramatic play helps children to gain a better understanding of their experiences, enabling them to reenact/relive them in their own time and with others. Whether it’s cooking dinner, feeding the new baby or going to the doctors, the possibilities grow as their world expands.
Children improve their abilities and confidence in socialising and communicating with others. They learn to find answers to minor conflicts in play and practice using oral language.
Dramatic play allows children to be creative as they make up their own stories and enact them either by themselves or with a group of others. Sometimes teachers join in to extend the children’s thinking and support them in growing their story through conversations and asking questions.
Children are drawn to dramatic play which is why you’ll often see it develop into a group activity at our centres. This is a really great way for children to learn about cooperation and understanding that people have different views and ideas. Learning to understand someone else’s point of view is an important skill that will be called upon throughout life.
Dramatic play develops an awareness and understanding of signs and symbols from everyday life such as writing shopping lists, counting items or coming to understand road signs on the centre bike track.
When playing with small dollhouses, manoeuvring the small furniture and figures helps children learn about spatial awareness - an important mathematic and science concept.
Family/Dramatic Play | Ngā Whakaari ā-whānau
Collect a range of props that focus on children’s lived experiences and see where that leads.
Playing with dolls is a great way for children to replicate their experiences. Dressing the doll, feeding it, bathing it and putting it to bed is great roleplay.
A box of dress ups that reflect various family members or activities are springboards for dramatic play and can provide a lot of laughs.
A selection of open ended materials such as cardboard boxes, pieces of material, are great props for creative dramatic play. Just see what your child comes up with.
Create a road with chalk on the ground or on large piece of paper. Have some cars, trucks, and figures ready to go. You can create your own road signs and symbols.
Children’s interests in farm, zoo or sea animals can be extended through dramatic play.
Play out a scene your child has learnt about in books or on TV.
Children love costumes so it’s great to have a selection of dress ups like builder’s gear, nurses uniform, a fire hat or an Elsa dress for children to re-enact scenes they’ve seen or learnt about before.
Continuing the learning at home
