your dramatic play area can be created with simple shelving attached to the fence

The dramatic play area is by design, an open ended play area that will facilitate the children's imaginative play. Perhaps some logs for seating and another, larger, log for a table, all under some form of shade structure in addition to the shelves on the fence is all that it takes. When kept this simple, it will provide the backdrop for many scenarios for the children’s play. You could, of course, include the standard kitchen items and play table, however by doing so, you have limited the children to playing house.

Another advantage to keeping this area simply created with logs and shelves is that when the day is over and props are put away, this becomes another garden room with flowers on the shelves and the logs arranged in an attractive grouping for additional seating.

The shade structure for this play area can be created as simply or as elaborately as you wish. Everything from the shade from a large tree, or a canopy created by a tarp hooked to the top of the fence and supported by two poles, to a pergola built above the area can define this play space.

If you keep the area more of a blank slate, and by preparing a variety of “prop boxes” to supplement your thematic activities, this area can be a fruit market one week, a pet store the next, a campsite, a school, an office, a pirate ship, a barn, a clubhouse, or…. The only limits are the imaginations of yourself and the children.

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