Week three of the Alphabet House theme was all about household chores and learning about responsibilities. Our activities included cleaning up, laundry, caring for pets, outdoor chores and welcoming guests. I always love setting up these dramatic play areas for a household theme. It makes learning and exploring fun!
Learning About Responsibilities
It’s important that children share in the chores around the house and help make their home a special, clean place. This week the children were building their responsibility skills and learning how to help with different jobs around the house.
Kids love to wash dishes!
You can’t go wrong with this activity – it’s sensory play combined with dramatic play. Perfect for indoor or outdoor play. We had several rainy days in a row so this was a perfect activity to break up the boredom.
Now if they could be this excited about washing dishes when they are older, right?!
Clean, soapy fun!
Squeezing dishtowels, wiping dishes, and rising off the bubbles are all part of washing dishes.
Oops, now we have another mess to clean up!
This is not a very efficient crew – they keep washing the dishes over and over! They are thorough, however!
Let’s not forget about all the awesome skills these young ones are practicing – pouring, sharing, eye-hand coordination, using both sides of the body plus all those math and science observations they are making.
Laundry Day
Oh, this is another fun household chore! Just ask any mom. Wait, moms aren’t the only ones who can do laundry, children can help too. We set up a laundry dramatic play area and worked on matching letters with the Laundry Letters activity.
Laundry Letters
With 26 letters in the alphabet, this activity looks a little overwhelming to little ones sometimes. I separated the cards into a container and put the clips on the tray. It helps organize it a little so it’s easier to manage. This little guy (dressed in a monarch butterfly costume and pastel dancing skirt) knows his letters and loves puzzles so he was all about this game.
What I noticed is he could use some work on his fine motor skills and hand strengthening. Pinching open the clip is difficult for him.
He did eventually get it and matched all the letters.
Often I have a hard time getting a couple of my boys to slow down for an activity like this one. They know their letters so they think they don’t need to do it. I presented it a little differently – how about we have a race and see who can clip the most cards with the right letter? Yep, they were on for that! And they wanted to play again.
Laundry Dramatic Play
My group was highly engaged in this laundry dramatic play area. I set up a temporary dramatic play area since it took up quite a bit of space but we got enough use out of it in one day.
The clothesline is tied to the bookshelves (which are attached to the wall for safety) and the other ends are tied to our shopping center. We had to put a basket of bean bags on top of the shopping center to weight it down but that worked.
It’s fun to set up dramatic play areas just using items you already have on hand. Clothespins, baby clothes, or doll clothes, child-sized hangers, and small storage baskets make great laundry baskets for kids.
Our juice bottles became laundry detergent bottles. No one questioned it – now the juice is soap.
One basket is the washing machine.
It’s fun to see how they play with the materials you give them.
Fabric scraps from the block area were also clipped to the clothesline.
No demonstrations were needed. All the kids have seen their parents do laundry many times so they took over as soon as everything was set up.
Soon the laundry area became a business. Can you see who the boss is?
It’s fun learning about responsibilities! We cleaned floors, took care of pets and explored other rooms in the house as well. We love the Alphabet House theme!