What is Family and Dramatic Play?

Family and dramatic play helps tamariki to use their imagination to act out familiar and unfamiliar roles, characters and situations. They might pretend to be a parent, doctor, or animal or act out feelings and events. This kind of play can help them to make sense of what is happening in their lives and the world around them.

Family and dramatic play is also known as sociodramatic play, role play, pretend play, make-believe, symbolic play and creative dramatics. It is the form of play in which children use props, such as dress-up clothes, play kitchens, other toys, household objects, or simple boxes, sticks, and other found materials to reenact events they have experienced or to act out things they have observed. Children who are playing house or school, or who are pretending they are taking a ride on a train, are engaging in sociodramatic play.

Using the imagination is a key factor in family and dramatic play. When children simply repeat a scene from a movie or television show they have watched, it is not considered dramatic play. However, if the children combine several shows or make up new adventures while imagining they are the characters in the show, that is dramatic play.

The integration of their own imagination and engagement with one or more other children makes sociodramatic play the most sophisticated form of play in which young children can participate.

https://theeducationhub.org.nz/what-is-play-and-why-is-it-important-for-learning/

Excerpt from research article “What is play and why is it important for learning?”