1. Dramatic Play
What Children Can
Learn

2. LITERACY
 Promote vocabulary and language
 Encourage children to explore print and
letters and words
 Promote understanding of books and
other texts

3. MATHEMATICS
 Guide problem solving
 Promote understanding number concepts
 Encourage
children’s interest in
measurement

4. SCIENCE
 Encourage children to explore physical
science
 Expand children’s knowledge of life
science
 Promote understanding of the earth and
the environment

5. SOCIAL STUDIES
 Encourage learning spaces and
geography
 Explore concepts people and how they
live

6. The Arts
 Encourage children to explore drama
 Promote the visual arts

7. Technology
 Raise children’s awareness of technology
 Promoteunderstanding of people and
technology

8. Dramatic Play
Teacher’s Role

9. Six Skills Children Use to
Pretend at a High Level
(Sara Smilansky)
 Role Play
 Use of props
 Make-believe
 Length of time
 Interaction
 Verbal Communication

10. Responding to
Each Child

11. Keeping the Six Skills in
Mind, notice whether
a child does the
following:

12. Selects the same role day after
day, or experiments with different
roles and thinks of many different
aspects the role
Use props to make believe, or
uses movements and/or words to
substitute for real objects

13. Makes up a situation and plays
out a sequence of events
Spends 10 minutes or longer in a
dramatic play episode

14. Collaborates with other children
in dramatic play
Useslanguage to communicate
ideas

15. Making suggestions to stimulate
dramatic play
Participating in children’s play
Introducing
new props to
enhance a study

16. FIN