Just why is dramatic play important in preschool? There are several reasons why dramatic play is important for child development. It teaches self-regulation, gives children an emotional outlet, and promotes language development. Not only that, but it helps them solve conflicts. Yes, it helps with conflict resolution! Conflicts are part of our day in preschool. They happen, and we are learning to work through our conflicts. Through dramatic play they are able to find compromises. They are learning to take on new roles, and what I really love about dramatic play is that it empowers children. The children are in control of who they want to be, what they want to do, and how they are going to make it happen.
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As everyone knows by now, I teach with the Experience Early Learning curriculum. I've used this curriculum for the past seven years and I love it. This month our theme is DinoLand. This has been a fun theme as I have several dinosaur lovers in my classroom! This is our third week with this theme and we have been focusing on dinosaur body parts. We completed two Make & Play lessons this week for our topics Dinosaur Head and Dinosaur Tail. I love receiving the Make & Play projects in our Experience Preschool curriculum because I always know it is going to lead to some really fun dramatic play scenarios. These projects spark their imaginations and it is fun to see what happens after they make their project!
"Look, I'm a dinosaur!"
Yes, the children turned into dinosaurs with these Make & Play projects this week. I'm sure you can imagine all of the roaring that took place! Today we talked about dinosaur tails and what we thought dinosaurs used them for. They also thought about what kind of tail they would want if they were a dinosaur. They created their own dinosaur tails through our Make & Play project today and this was a great way to put their scissor skills to good use as they worked to cut out each strip. When they told me their hands were tired I helped them finish. These kiddos work hard! Some of the children made their tails longer than others. I love the smiles I see as they show off their projects!
Yesterday was our Dinosaur Head topic and we discussed the similarities and differences we noticed between the different dinosaur heads and then compared them to our own. We made dinosaur headbands.
When I asked if I could get their picture, they immediately put their hands up like a dinosaur!
Make & Play projects are great because as soon as the children are done making them they get to play with their newly created project. You really get to see their imaginations at work with these type of projects!
Next week our focus will be on Jurassic Land. I will be focusing on STEAM, and have some science experiments planned!
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