Creative/Dramatic Play: Store Front (Part 4 of 4)

“Caps for sale! Caps for sale!”

Make your children’s favorite stories come to life with a store front. Place the store front along a bike path and let children create their own story —maybe a lemonade stand, a counter at a bank, post office or fast food restaurant – the possibilities are as plentiful as the imagination. Just remember: as the teacher or care provider, “if you dominate the play, you take away some of the creative value for the children” (Miller, 1989. p. 41). Let them be in control.

Several store fronts strategically placed in an outdoor play area create a friendly small town effect

Check out The Adventurous Child and The Outdoor Preschool Store for more information!

Creative/Dramatic Play: Car Wash (Part 3 of 4)

Hot day? Take your kids outside and let them cool off with a car wash.

A great addition to any outdoor play area, the car wash allows children to enter and exit through realistic plastic flaps, similar to a real car wash. A pipe runs down the roof line and has several sprayer jets that release water on the children as they ride through the car wash. Connect a standard hose to the sprayer jets, turn on the water and the fun begins!

As I discussed earlier, water play can improve children’s physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Playing with the car wash will allow them to participate in a variety of gross/fine motor and sensory activities, make simple cause/effect predictions as well as use new vocabulary, and role play different types of occupations. Consider adding a car wash to your outdoor play area today!

Creative/Dramatic Play: Playhouse and Gas Pump (Part 2 of 4)

Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld, renowned dance instructor, commented: “I know from my experiences that when children have the chance to move and to be creative, it helps them engage with the rest of the curriculum…. [M]ovement involve[s] language and patterning, which support reading and problem solving” (p. 12).

A playhouse offers abundant opportunities for movement and creative play. A playhouse provides the structure but the children create the story. Depending on the children’s imagination, the playhouse can be a home, bank, restaurant, covered bridge, etc. Throw a sheet over the playhouse and it’s a cave. The options are endless!

A gas pump allows children to fill things up, including their bikes, wagons, wheelchairs, or even shoes. Children will increase their ability to problem solve through exploration (i.e., pump gas like an adult).

An example of a fun playhouse and gas pump can be found at The Adventurous Child and at The Outdoor Preschool Store.

Creative/Dramatic Play (Part 1 of 4)

“Music, dance, drama, and story are the oldest ways human beings learned to pass on information, traditions, customs, and beliefs…. In the vocabulary of some Native American and African languages, there is no word for art, because art is part of everything the people do. Children are natural connectors. Similarly, they see the performing arts as part of everything they do” (Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld; article: Derry Koralek Young Children, March 2010, p. 10).

As we continue our series on Fine Arts, let’s examine how creative and dramatic play is beneficial to children’s learning. Do you remember playing dress-up or performing for your friends and parents? Take a walk down memory lane with us while we talk about some products that will be great in your preschool or daycare center’s outdoor classroom.

Join us on Thursday as we take a look at playhouses and gas pumps.

Drivers’ Ed

Who doesn’t remember learning how to drive? Whether you learned on an automatic or a manual, on urban streets or in the country, learning to drive is a big deal. This sparked a fun conversation among folks at The Adventurous Child as we recalled the various stops and starts of our own drivers’ education.

Speaking of stops and starts, recognizing signs is a big first step to driving. Teach drivers’ safety to your children early on with these signs:

These signs are great for dramatic play and teaching vehicle and pedestrian traffic safety. The signs may also spark a conversation about safety. You could use the signs to create a safety town: Place the signs along the bike path and the children will love coming to a screeching halt to avoid a collision or a traffic ticket. Children will enjoy talking about safety and ways to ensure it on their “roads.” The possibilities are endless!

Create a City Outdoors

A preschool playground is a great place to set up a city. Creating a city outdoors is a wonderful thing that can be done simply with cardboard boxes. Children can decorate the boxes and cut out doors and windows. Then you can put these items along your bike path. Name your streets and label them, which will help with literacy. By using signs such as crosswalk, stop, railroad, and yield signs, children will have an opportunity to meet the early learning standard of recognizing environmental print. Take chalk outside and have children actually chalk crosswalks and parking spaces onto your concrete surfaces. They can even create a wheelchair spot, mimicking real life parking lots. Have fun with your bike path and incorporate it into your playground as if it were a city street. Let me hear your comments about unique things you have done with your bike path.

“What do we want children to gain on the preschool playground? Are these the same things they gain outdoors?”

Yes, in many ways the goals of what we want children to learn in the outdoor classroom are the same as the inside classroom. The Adventurous Child would like to see children develop socially, emotionally, cognitively, physically, etc. in outdoor settings where there is nature and movement all around.


One important area of the preschool curriculum is providing social experiences which create cooperation and parallel play. Having quiet gathering areas like a willow hut, a playhouse, or a store front puts children in situations where they interact with each other. These learning centers really come alive with the buzzing of busy children when manipulatives are provided. The playhouse can have dress up clothes for social and dramatic play. Fake money to buy and sell things also provides manipulatives. A willow hut can have pots and pans for cooking a group’s favorite mud stew with meat sticks. Bits of grass can be used for anything.


When choosing manipulatives to create social interaction, pick items that help you meet your state’s Early Learning Standards. If you want to know more about something specific please feel free to comment or to contact me.