Housekeeping?

Ever thought of changing housekeeping? Here are some ideas and links

hospital, grocery store and restaraunt... more ideas on http://www.kidcount1234.com

Bakery

I change it into a veterinarian's office. I bring in stuffed animals and I get out my doctor's kit. I also put old ankle wraps (the stretchy kind that you wrap on sprained ankles)along with a small cat carrier in the housekeeping area. The kids absolutely love checking out the animals and wrapping them up in the bandages.

flower shop and pizza parlour

There are a couple of "sets" out there with pizza stuff in them. One is by Melissa and Doug and I bought it at Tj Maxx. The other I got at Lakeshore, I believe, or Discount School Supply. There are pieces to make pizza, cutter, cheese shaker. Check your catalogs. I put out a cash register, order pad, telephone and pocket chart with pizza words pepperoni, mushroom, cheese, etc, I made checked aprons and tabkecloth and chef's hats. Also, I went to local pizza shop and got small boxes, menus, and bags.

School, Doctor's Office, Toy Store- Lakeshore has dramatic play boxes of several of these ideas! Each box comes with 4 write$wipe cards and 4 word rings with different vocab. words.

I've done several of the ideas already listed but a couple of others are a pet store and a bus station. We made a bus by painting a big box and put up small Judy Clocks labeled arrival time and departure time. We also had maps and a cash register for them to play with purchasing tickets. We created tickets, printed them out, and laminated them for durability. I teach pre-k and we follow ECERS. We have to have 2 well developed dramatic play themes in our dramatic play center. One of course is always home living since we have all the stuff and then we swap out the second.

plan a wedding for q and u and thus the drama center becomes the site for the wedding - prepare reception foods. Kids love playing dress up for the wedding afterward

It had such great ideas I had to keep it to help me with my own plans!
October- I have lots of pumpkins which i have collected. There are the type used for trickor treating, small ones which once had match box cars in them etc. Ihave also been given many donations. During this time I do everything up with fall and Halloween decorations and put our a cash register along with pricing stickers. The kids love to charge 100 for everything! I also put out fall silk flowers and leaves which some kids like to use to make arrangements in the pumpkin buckets. Nov. I don't do anything new because we miss so much school during conferences and Thanksgiving. I just fo back to housekeepingDec.I have 3 small fake trees and lots of decorations. I have a variety of. boxes along with wrapping paper. The kids decoratand and wrap. I put out the cah register and sometimes they charge each other for their services. I find that they also love to make things to decorate the center with (It is a mess and kind of drives me nuts but they love it.Jan.Grocery store. I put grocery ads out and lots of empty food boxes and cans along with baskets for shopping. The kids set up and then price things and use the cash registerFebruary- I made mail cubbies from 1/2 gallon milk cartons which I have put letters on a b c etc.I have tons of stationary, stickers, a variety of pens and pencils and envelopes. Kids write letter and put them in the appropriate box. I often buy 200 penny stamps and they can use those as well. 1 per letter. sometimes kids sort and then take turns putting the envelpoes into the kids cubbiesMarch is Dennys. I have menus from the restaurant a pad for taking orders and the kitchen comes back out because we need to have a cook. Someone is a waiter ,there are customers and then a cashier.In my imagination station kids pick a job and then do that until someone wishes to trade. For example, at the restaurant there are necklaces with the job on it 1. cook 2. waitress 3. customer 4. customer 5. cashier. The center is full when all necklaces have been taken. Kids can trade off if they wish. When I introduce a new center we look at the jobs and discuss what each person should be doing then we make the necklaces, customers do not ring up their own food! (;This works really good for me.