KD's Sweet Shop

An important area of our kindergarten classroom is the sociodramatic play area, set up as a "house centre" in the beginning of the year. Why take up so much valuable classroom space with a play house, I've been asked. Kindergarten classroom spaces are getting smaller, so there's pressure to store centres off to the side. But since sociodramatic play is so integral to cognitive development and learning that is developmentally appropriate for 4, 5, and 6 year olds, I've chosen to make this area front and centre of our room. This centre allows children to role play, practice social skills, learn about the behaviour of others, develop their imaginaion and creativity, and so on. It is always a popular choice with just about every child in our room.

Here's a few snapshots of the students "playing house" in the fall: 

But as fall turned to winter, it was clear we weren't taking the best care of the house centre, with dolls, dress-up clothes, and play food more often than not ending up on the floor and behind the furniture instead of in their proper places.

So over the Christmas holiday, I cleared out most of toys in the house centre and stored them away, save for some writing materials:

The kids loved the centre anyways and used their imaginations to fill in all the blanks: making imaginary food, for example.

But we also discussed taking better care of the toys so that we could set them back up. 

I also planted the idea; instead of setting things up exactly the way they were before, what about transforming the house into something else?

Imaginations went to work as we brainstormed all the things we could transform our play area into. A pet shop, thought RL. A science lab, suggested KW. FM thought of a restaurant. Several girls wanted a castle, with KB insisting on an ice palace. Others thought a store would be nice. DD really wanted a super hero's lair. 

Over several days we discussed the ideas, argued our cases, and voted for our favourite. The restaurant won the vote. Next, we discussed what sort of restaurant would we make. 

Each child made a plan of what the restaurant should look like, what food it would sell, and what we would need to make it:

by MJ

by DD

by AV

by LP

by KB

Pizza was an early favourite, but after examining pictures of all the choices, it was desserts that won out.

Then, we brainstormed names for our restaurant and again held a vote:

KD's Sweet Shop it was!

We started the transformation.

We made a sign (KB and SA made the letters with many more helping to decorate):

We wrote menus:

DD cutting out pictures for his menu

TY shows where the menus are kept.

TY adding her menu to the stack.

We made chef hats:

And we added labels so that we would know exactly where everything goes when cleaning up:

"Cash Register"

"Menus" and "Dishes"

When everything was ready to go, we held a grand opening of "KD's Sweet Shop" restaurant. Complete with a ribbon cutting!

Ready to cut the ribbon and open the restaurant.

SA cutting the ribbon

Time to play!

Chef AG