Tot School: Community Worker Dramatic Play Party

At the end of our community worker theme, we had a little get together.  It was a great party.  It would have been a lot better if I’d had a few more older kids to show the little ones how to do things, but they did a great job on their own.  There was one area that they didn’t even attempt.  We moms could’ve helped more, but these are as much for us to enjoy talking with other adults as it is for the kids. 🙂  The kids had fun.  We had fun.  And this is part of my journey of letting go of my controlling tendencies…I will not force her to play with the doctor’s stuff! 😉

Here are the stations I set up.  I asked moms to bring any kind of costumes/props for the different areas I had.  We did this in our front  yard, so there is a lot of gravel in these pictures. 🙂

Firefighter

Materials:

1. bucket of water
2. 3 squirter thingies (apparently called “water blasters”, you can find them here)
3. red, yellow, orange chalk
4. bottles of water

I had my husband draw flames on a wall, since he’s the artist.  Mine would look like anything but flames. 🙂 

The kids loved it!  Most went back a few times.  It was a great motor skills activity as well, since they had to figure out how to use those water blasters. The kids used their water blasters as their fireman hoses.  It’s been months since we’ve done this, but we’ve been to the pool a few times and my daughter still pretends to be a firefighter when she plays with them.

Doctor, Nurse, Vet

Materials:

1. 2 low kid tables
2. medical supplies: bandages, scissors, stethoscopes, any other medical stuff
3. patients: dolls and stuffed animals laid out on blankets
4. “vitamins” (craisins)
5. sling

No pictures because the kids didn’t play with it.  But, now that I think about it, it was the only shaded area, so a few moms were sitting on the blanket.  So it might be that they just didn’t notice it. 🙂

Construction Worker

Those piles of rocks were fair game — unfortunately they’re always there!!  Someday we’ll figure out what to do with them.

Materials:

1. piece of wood with nails nailed half way in it
2. one real hammer (I used a normal one, but was told there are kid sized ones.  I just looked it up on amazon and saw this!  There are real tools for a kid!  There’s even a saw! So cool!)
3. blocks
4. fake tools
5. toy dump truck
6. gravel/rocks
7. pretzels (stack them)

Post Office

Materials:

1. paper, pens, pencils, crayons and markers
2. envelopes (I just used some old ones that no longer had the matching cards)
3. “stamps”  (I used the kinds of stickers you’d use for a garage sale.)
4. forms from the Post Office
5. postcards for each child
6. box of raisins, wrapped in a brown paper bag (a la covering old textbooks) with each name on it…had my husband do this too after my first attempt was a bit lumpy. 🙂
7. little mailbox (found them for a dollar at Target, here’s one that’s not as cheap, but not too bad if you can’t find these at your Target.)

I had them write themselves a postcard, put a real stamp on it, and then we all walked to the mailbox and put it in.  The mailman came while we were still playing so, they all went and waved.

Librarian

Materials:

1. books (as many about community workers as possible)
2. Ten Little Caterpillars Book (or any caterpillar book)
3. library cards (found blank ones online)
4. stamps and an ink pad
5. toothpicks
6. grapes
7. craisins

I had an example of a caterpillar out.  They had fun making them once and then just ate the grapes. 🙂  For every book they read (or were read to), they got a stamp.

Mother/Father

Materials:

1. baby dolls
2. high chair
3. chair with a toilet seat on it
4. diapers and wipes
5. baby toys
6. bed (wagon)
7. carrier (I use an old arm sling 🙂 )
8. baby snacks (I used these puffs by Happy Baby)
9. stroller

Farmer

Materials:

1. shovels
2. cut up sweet potatoes
3. clear cup
4. bean seeds

I realized later that it was a little precarious to take home since the cups had no lids.  So next time I think I’d do wet cotton balls in a plastic baggie with the bean seeds.

Had them dig holes and drop in the sweet potatoes.

Lesson Learned: Dramatic play requires more support from me or I need to invite older kids.

You can find other Tot School activities here.

Here is my inspiration Pinterest board if you’d like more ideas for Community Helper/Workers (Toddler/Preschool/K)

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