ECH 320 Dramatic Play
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California Baptist University *
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320
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English
Date
Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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5
Uploaded by MsJay87
Running head: DRAMATIC PLAY PAPER
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Dramatic Play Paper
Ashley Erickson
California Baptist University
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Dramatic Play Paper
The Dramatic Play Area is an excellent center that provides young children with the opportunity to engage in play that allows them to take on imaginary roles created from their mind or mimic roles they have seen within their home environment and community. As children make-believe and use props, they engage in beginning levels to advanced dramatic play skills. Dramatic play utilizes skills that address and promote several aspects of development, including cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and language. Through dramatic play, children have the opportunity to learn about diversity and culture as they interact with one another and share their personal experiences with their peers. An excellent Dramatic Play Area should resemble a household filled with everyday items that children are familiar with using and should be diverse with cultural items such as food and utensils that reflect the cultures within the classroom. In the Youtube video titled “Dramatic Play (2011),” the preschool-aged children played in the Dramatic Play Area, engaging in several roles independently, and interacting with peers. The levels of dramatic play skills fluctuated between beginning to advanced. A girl wearing a blue dress displayed a beginning level of role-playing as she explains that she is the mommy and is taking her baby Rapunzel shopping, but then as she plays, her role moves into more of an advanced level of play. The child transfers the doll from the high chair to the stroller and begins dressing the doll while placing items on the bottom of the stroller. She then proceeds to the market stand where another child is playing at the resister. She looks at the other child and says, “Excuse me, can I order something”(Kcontre, 2011)? The child who was previously engaged in his own role play decided to join in on her make-believe scenario by looking up and saying, “sure.” This action demonstrated an advanced level of interaction between the two children and an advanced character role chosen as he pretends to be the store clerk. The children then engage
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in advanced verbal communication as the boy instructed the girl to place her order over the phone. She properly uses the phone to place her order. When she is finished, the boy hands her the chicken she ordered. This interaction is an example of an advanced level of using props as part of a play episode. The two continue to play together, and the girl finds more props to extend her role as a mother who is grocery shopping. She finds a purse and walks over to the cash register to grab some money and place it into her purse. She then goes and retakes the baby shopping interacting with another student dressed like a clerk.
To ensure the children were pretending using a high level of skills, the teachers in the video asked the children questions so they could elaborate on their roles and explain what they were doing and why. The little girl in the blue dress explained that she was taking the baby shopping because she loved her. She was showing her understanding of emotions and the relationship between mother and child. Another girl said she was playing and cooking in the kitchen. Simultaneously, the boys switched hats and played with different props trying to decide what they were going to do, taking turns working at the register.
All six dramatic play skills were present in the observation. The children in the video were engaged with others in dramatic play for ten minutes, displaying math concepts by playing with money at a register and literacy skills with the signs displayed in English and Spanish to label props. The children also practiced gross motor and fine motor skills as they pretended to stir and cook meals, dressed themselves in aprons, and fastened buckles on different hats. The children helped each other engage in make-believe as they suggested roles based upon the appearance of a prop. For example, a boy put on a police officer helmet did not know what role he was taking on. Another child told him he looked like an astronaut and asked if the astronaut wanted eggs. The children showed their language skills as they engaged in social interactions to
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communicate their needs and ideas while staying in character. The time spent in the Dramatic Play Area resulted in the children learning concepts in all areas of development.
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References
Kcointre4. (2011, July 12). Dramatic play [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDEty7ZPG_I