A Peek Inside Our Playroom: Space Station Dramatic Play

There's no place like outer space! I think S and Y could both count backwards from 10 to 1 and blast off before they ever learned to count forwards. Stars, planets, astronauts and space ships are a beloved theme for kids of all ages. We've just finished off a major heat wave here and I am glad to see it go. Today's temps are 30 degrees cooler than yesterday's high and it's been steadily raining on my dehydrated garden all day. But knowing that today was going to be a soggy day and yet another in a row of days we couldn't be outside for long, I wanted to have something fun to occupy everyone.
We've still been having fun here in our Build-a-Car Auto Shop and I'm not quite ready to tear it down and do a complete revamp. And with the materials and tools we already had set out, a little tweaking to the type of transportation in mind and a few additions, turning our living room into a NASA Space Station Dramatic Play Center was the perfect next step in our Sprout Scouts play adventures. We've explored space themed activities here before and we even attended a Rocket Day event at one of our local library branches earlier in the summer. Dramatic play is a favorite way to engage in learning about nearly any topic in our house and when it comes to getting that set up and organized, I love the Space Theme Dramatic Play set by Pocket of Preschool.

Outer space is a theme that is as vast and expansive as, well, outer space! You could get really into setting up a play area and learning activities with this theme or you could keep it simple and engage the help of your young astronauts in training, as I did. I did spend a bit of time in the evening yesterday gathering my printed materials, making some jet packs from recycled water jugs, duct tape and ribbon, preparing our control panel and setting out some large paper and art supplies to make a Space Station sign for Morning Work.

The boys began the day by adding stickers, rocket ships and coloring a sign for the front of our Space Station. Next, it was time to set up our space shuttle. We used our puppet theater and a couple of chairs. You could also make the front of your space station with a tri-fold presentation board and old car seats as Pocket of Preschool did in her classroom. I really love the idea of involving the boys in setting up our dramatic play adventures as much as possible. For one thing, I need the help! It also gives them ownership of their play and learning experience while engaging their focus a lot better than when I set everything up in advance.





Setting up very little this time was partially intentional and partially because I didn't exactly have everything prepared when I decided to do this at the last minute yesterday. And what I learned yet again today is just how OK that is! Even in a classroom setting, it is OK to gradually implement a new play theme and to take a little help from your little friends.

Y and S both helped make some telescopes for viewing and observing different planets out of recycled cardboard tubes, duct tape and washi tape. Incidentally, Y's telescope also functions as a trumpet...


Both boys love the jet packs. I don't always make or have enough of our props and materials for each child to have his/her own, but in this case I am glad I saved 4 empty water jugs so we'd have one for S and Y. And since they are made predominantly from recycled materials and the rest from supplies we already had, this was a very budget friendly play theme to set up. I also recycled the cardboard backing from a large easel pad to make our control panel. I covered it in tinfoil and glued on images from the printed set. Alternatively you could also use stickers and create your own buttons and images from printed pictures, construction paper, draw with permanent marker or even glue on recycled bottle caps.

S asked for help to read the names of planets and every time we choose a destination, he "presses" that "button" first. Then both boys count back from 10 and blast off! Next they disembark from their space shuttle, put on their jet packs (with a little help as needed) and go exploring! We make up different things we see on each planet before getting back into the ship and heading back toward Earth.

Donning his jet pack...

S is moving around in a "bouncy" way because there is no gravity here on the moon!

Ready for takeoff!

Instead of having everything out and ready to go where our playroom was a means to an end, this is simply the beginning! We have a lot of exploring to do. S has already asked to make some astronaut costumes. We've decided we want to make some planets and decorations for our space station to make it look more like the solar system. Both S and Y want to know more about the planets and space, so we headed to the library to gather some books. Stay tuned for more play activities that are simply out of this world, and until then...

Happy Playing!