The Importance Of Dramatic Play In The Classroom

The article Environments That Inspire complied by Susan Friedman was a fantastic piece. I learned that having a stick building area for children will encourage children to explore their imagination and create something for either dramatic play or make different kinds of structures. Another thing I have learned was how important it can be to have low tables and chair for toddlers. Allowing the children to sit in these chairs where their feet can rest on the floor give them a feeling of independence. Lastly, something that I learned and found quite interesting was having the All About Me Books. The child and parent can work together to create these and then bring them to class. The books celebrate each child’s uniqueness, encourage literacy,

Sara Smilansky is a Developmental Theorist who has identified four types of play: Functional play, Constructive play, Dramatic play, and games with rules. Smilansky says that Dramatic play is the most mature type of play because this is the time where children start to understand their surroundings and imitate what they see others doing. The research on play focused on sociodramatic play and the impact it has on children’s learning. In Smilansky’s book ‘The Effects of Sociodramatic play on Disadvantaged Preschool Children’, she says that “…a form of voluntary social play activity in which preschool children participate”.

Dramatic play- This was very prevalent in the classroom that I noticed; everything seemed to be dramatic play. In the classroom I observed, there is a wooden telephone booth, a kitchen, a stove, a pantry with play food with the appropriate place settings as well as pots and pans. They also have a costume closet, and there’s so much to choose from; firefighter, chef, princess, police officer, a dog, a horse a doctor and Thomas the train.

Dramatic play permits children to fit the reality of the world into their own interests and knowledge. One of the purest forms of symbolic thought available to young children, dramatic play, contributes strongly to the intellectual development of children. Young children learn by imagining and doing and dramatic play allows them to do so. Dramatic play also promotes the use of speaking and listening skills. When children take part in this type of play, they practice words they have heard others say, and realize that they must listen to what other “players” say in order to be able to respond in an appropriate fashion. This style of play also promotes the development of social skills through interaction with others, peers or adults, which is a necessary factor in a child’s future.

The center I chose to observe was the dramatic play center which is a kitchen. I chose this center because because it's a great way to observe children. The purpose of the dramatic play center is to help develop social, emotional and oral language skills. It gives children a chance to assign roles, self regulate when having to take turns and during all of this children are developing language skills.

Socio-dramatic play- children act out real or potential experiences based on situations they see in their lives. For example drama, role play, puppets.

The name of Rachel and I’s preschool was Chit Chatter Clubhouse. Our philosophy discusses how our preschool strives to educate the whole child physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually. We also strive to provide stimulation activities that will prepare our students for the future. Based off of this philosophy we were able to choose different materials from the content areas and set up our classroom with the areas of science, math, block, art, P.E./movement, dramatic play, and reading/writing and morning meeting/circle time. We decided on materials for these areas based off of our goals as well. We found developmentally appropriate furniture such as shelves, tables, chairs, and couches. These furniture pieces were low to the ground since we are teaching 3-5 year olds. Along with these furniture pieces, we have a teacher area with shelving and a desk for us so we can create lessons or work on things to make us better teachers. We have sinks and bathrooms that help students become independent and learn healthy

Dramatic play is one of the most important and useful center for children in the classroom. By playing in dramatic play they can develop their physical, cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional domains. In the article “Supporting Language: Culturally Rich Dramatic Play” the author state” Mrs. Ramos invites them to talk about their weekend activities. Rodrigo says he and his grandmother went to the panaderia (bakery). Two children ask, “What is that?” Juanita explains, “That’s a bakery where you buy bread and cake.” Mrs. Ramos says she and her mother used to go to the panaderia when she was a child. The children smile.” This a further proof of how children can develop their cognitive, linguistic

Dr. Rekha S. Rajan writes about how she implemented a twenty-minute structured dramatic play into class time to encourage children to learn to solve conflicts on their own. She first does this by gaining insight on the children’s feelings with a personal story time. Each child tells a story that made them particularly sad, mad, upset, or happy. She then takes those experiences and creates a pre-determined scenario to which, the children will play different roles, share ideas, and come up with a solution.

Surrounding each home base is a cluster of resource rich activity pockets (primary activity spaces), one for each of the developmentally oriented activities for each age group in that house. Three to four activity pockets can be clustered together, each sized for 2-5 children plus a caregiver. Each activity pocket has a sense of closure, but has cross visibility and is easily visible by an adult. Each pocket has all the teaching materials, displays, and work/play surfaces necessary for that activity. Examples of the great variety necessary: block area, art studio, music corner, science corner, reading/listening area, sand/water play,

Playing in the in the dramatic play center will give the children the opportunity to play and interact with their peers. As the child pretends to be the mom and hold a baby and feed the baby a bottle. The child is acting out what they have seen at home when her mother feeds her baby brother. Then another child is pretending to play restaurant and taking your order of what you want to eat. They make marks on a piece of paper and then goes to the

I choose to read Stage Struck by Tomie DePaola to a kindergarten class. The book Stage Struck was about a kindergarten class putting a play on for the school. The play was Peter Rabbit and the main character wanted to be the star of the play like he was in the last play they put on. He was so excited about the play that he could not focus on his work and kept talking to his friends about the play. The teacher told him to stop talking and when he did not stop, she told him he will not the lead star in the play someone else will be. He was a rabbit in the play and they did not have any lines to say. He remembers in his dance class that the audience like when they react to things on stage, like a smile or frowned. He came up with a plan to

There are numerous theories of play and countless theorists, from Freud and Spencer to Piaget and Vygotsky, who have studied play in relation to what it is and what it does for the child. This essay will outline the definition and value of play and the importance of how it can foster the child’s learning in regards to these theorists who studied the effects in great detail. It will discuss the how the environments constructed by educators can impact play and the theories of learning relating to the quote “play and learning are inextricably woven together ...” Ebbeck and Waniganayake, 2010, p. 5).

Play is usually a natural activity in early childhood and has significant importance in early childhood special education. Play assists in enhancing the children social competence, creativity, language development, and their thinking skills. Play is usually the key vehicle for the developing of language, social skulls in young children (Rogers ET all. 2009). Moreover, it serves as a functional behavior which contributes to the life quality of the children. .

Despite the claim that Drama in Education ( DIE) as a pedagogy dimmed its popularity in the Western world since 1990 until 2016 (Gallagher, et al. , 2017), in the year of 2011, Morrow, et al. included it as one of the best practices in literacy instruction. Some of the teachers who had the experience of trying process drama in their classrooms found that the pedagogy improved students’ participations, pushed students to use their imaginations, performed deeper understanding of the topics being learned and made the students learn to have empathy ( Long, 1998). Do the voices from the classroom resemble to what researchers and theories have to say on process drama?