Dramatic and Imaginative Play is different in the school age classroom.

Imaginative play for the school age program needs less realism than the preschool classroom. By providing a basic framework that can be rearranged according to the scenario the children are creating at the time, and supplementing with items that correlate with the theme allows the children to fully engage in their own creativity.

Lengths of material are more effective than specific dress-up clothes for school agers. A shimmery length of material can easily become an elegant evening gown, a sari, kimono or mosquito netting. Rugged denim, burlap or muslin can become cowboy chaps, a trader’s tent, a homestead dirt floor or the sail on a pirate’s ship. For this age, the less specific the props, the more the children can do with them.

For this learning area to be fully used, it is important that you continue to rotate prop items to correspond with each theme. This is easily accomplished with a series of prop boxes. If you plan to create a new prop box with a new theme at least once per month, you will soon have a collection of prop boxes to begin rotating with similarly themed units.

When kept this simple, it will provide the backdrop for many scenarios for the children’s play. 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.

Go to After School Programs from Imaginative Play

Return to Childcare Resources home