RD- Developing the role play area (Communication and Language/English)

We are developing our role play area.  Can you help us?

Role play is vital as it allows children to revisit familiar and unfamiliar events, explore their social and emotional lives, develop language and communication as well as developing their imagination.

In school, classrooms have ‘home corners’ were children have opportunity to develop role play in the context of their own lives. These will be enhanced over the year with the arrival of a new baby or a new puppy or there could be a problem like a water leak or a burglary!

We also have ‘deconstructive role play areas’ both indoors and outdoors, which have more open ended resources that can be turned into anything depending on who is playing in there. These areas will be enhanced throughout the year depending on the topic and the interests of the children e.g. resources to play vets, hairdressers, café etc.

We constantly need to update our resources to make role play appealing. You may have many unwanted items in your home that could support us with this. 

Large boxes and  tubes

Bread crates
Large pieces of fabric
Rugs
Tea towel
Cutlery
Pots
Pans
Birthday cards
Tape measures
Purses
Handbags
Child’s dressing gown
Child’s slippers
Hats
Flask
Camping mugs
Working clock
Small lamp
Living plant
Child’s umbrella
Picnic basket/hamper
Child’s sunglasses
Child’s scarf
Child’s gloves
Doll
Indoor plant
Soft toy dog
Dolls clothes
Notebooks

This week we talked about decorating.  We discussed how you plan changes.  This could include looking at different ideas and taking measurements.  Then we added a box of enhancements (tape measure, magazine, paint brushes/roller, wallpaper) for the children to use in their play.