march 2025
Dramatic play has always been a large focus in our program, however, more recently the kitchen centre is exploding full of dramatic play explorations! As the children’s language has continued to develop and grow, they are sharing their thoughts and ideas more freely during play scenarios. These thoughts/ideas started off small by labelling familiar fruits/vegetables, then developing into full sentences explaining what they are doing in the kitchen, such as saying “I’m making soup! Soup is hot!”. The children have also acted out real life scenarios in the kitchen, such as touching the element on the stove and saying “Hot!”, turning the tap on and saying “Wash hands”, using their cups to get ice from the play fridge, as well as saying “Beep! Beep! Beep!” before opening the microwave.
Due to this large interest around the kitchen centre, we decided to place a real fruit/vegetable in the kitchen centre to see what the children will do with it. The first fruit we introduced was a lemon. J examined the lemon before giving it to Emily, saying “Peel it”. J then passed the lemon to T. T also examined the lemon and said, “Orange! Cut! Cut!” as he placed the lemon on a cutting board and began trying to cut the lemon with a play knife. We made our way to the snack tables to smell and taste the lemon together! The children were a little bit hesitant about the taste of the lemon at first, but ended up absolutely loving it! We kept this exploration going by introducing a red bell pepper into the kitchen centre a few days later. S held the bell pepper and said “Apple?” Several of the children were curious if it was an apple, so we gathered at the snack tables to compare an apple to the red bell pepper. Similarly to the experiment with the lemon, the children had the opportunity to smell and taste the pepper! We have also created “smelly jars” for the children to continue developing their sense of smell. These jars include fresh mint leaves, as well as cotton balls with a few drops of orange extract and vanilla extract! I wonder what’s next for our kitchen exploration...
Emily Merenda RECE, Swati Limbachia Ba, BEd, MA, Rachelle Minthorn RECE RT
