Blessed Sacrament pre-k students explore, learn and create in the Dramatic Play Centers

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Pre-k is “Out of this World!” The pre-k children at Blessed Sacrament School are exploring, learning, creating, and having a blast in the dramatic play centers. As a former director and drama teacher and current pre-k teacher, Mrs. Shinkaruk-Hobbs loves to use dramatic play throughout her pre-k classroom.

Dramatic play involves acting out real-world situations while taking on the roles of different characters. There are two types of dramatic play: structured and unstructured. Unstructured dramatic play provides the children the freedom to choose their own roles and play scenarios, whereas with the structured dramatic play, the children are presented with a pre-determined scenario and then they make choices and discover solutions. Whether it is unstructured or structured, the dramatic play area is always a huge success with the pre-k class at Blessed Sacrament School.

According to Mrs. Shinkaruk-Hobbs, “These young children thrive on pretend play; they love to dress up and role play real life situations in the dramatic play area. They are not just playing, learning is occurring. There are endless opportunities for developing creativity, imagination, socializing, math and oral language skills, in the dramatic play area.”

On Fridays, the classroom is transformed, and the children engage in a structured dramatic play led by Mrs. Shinkaruk-Hobbs and Mrs. Mese. With the premise of the importance of the imagination, the children become various characters and explore various scenarios. The pre-k class has taken a bus to Disneyland, Legoland and SeaWorld and sent a postcard to their parents from all those places. They have experienced various train stations and trains as they rode on the Rocky Mountaineer, the steam train in an African jungle, the fastest bullet train in Japan, the train to the Lost City of Atlantis and the Polar Express. While on the trains, the children pretended to take pictures and then later drew pictures for the photographs. As pirates, the children enjoyed sailing the seas and creating various parts of their pirate ship including a treasure map, helm, hat and flag. The children loved talking like pirates and imagining what it would be like to walk the plank. During space travel, the children explored the universe. They blasted off in their rockets to the Space Station, explored space, encountered aliens, examined rocks under the microscope and survived a meteor shower.

At Blessed Sacrament School, the pre-k children are expanding their vocabularies, creative thinking and storytelling abilities, learning to think abstractly, practicing problem-solving skills and developing their abilities to empathize and work cooperatively with others all while having fun exploring, learning and growing. Mrs. Shinkaruk-Hobbs has already set up a post office for the unstructured center and will be setting up a veterinarian clinic for the structured center. What fun and learning awaits.  

Courtesy of Blessed Sacrament Catholic School