Doctor’s Office Dramatic Play in Preschool

The Doctor’s Office Dramatic Play center is a big hit with young children in preschool and kindergarten. This particular dramatic play scenario is meaningful to them because they have been to a doctor’s office before. When children are engaged in meaningful play they are more motivated to use print and writing tools in authentic ways to support their play.

Preschoolers like pretending to be mommy and daddy while the baby dolls play the roles of the patients. They love pretending to cough, give shots, and have broken limbs. When I saw this post from Family Chic I was inspired to create casts for the baby dolls in the dramatic play center.

I used a white baby sock to create the arm cast pictured at the top. Just use scissors to cut the toes out of the sock, and then make a small slit for the thumb. The leg cast pictured above was not altered; it’s just a baby sock- super simple but loads of fun for little ones!

One year I placed a basket of thin construction paper strips in the writing center and they immediately disappeared, then re-appeared on the wrists of all the students in the dramatic play center. The children had glued the strips in loops and made their own hospital wristbands to wear when they were admitted to the hospital. There was one child who assigned wristband colors to ailments, “Yellow means you have a bad cough, red is for fevers.” Their creativity never ceases to amaze me!

If you are looking for doctor’s office dramatic play props that incorporate literacy and writing for authentic purposes you might be interested in the printable Doctor’s Office kit.

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