Strawberry Dramatic Play Shop

Each year, my class goes on a field trip to the Strawberry Patch, so this year, I decided to set up a Strawberry Dramatic Play area. You can find my other Dramatic Play centers here. At the bottom of this post, I will share where I got each item.

This is the front of our Strawberry Patch Shop. We have this shelf with a built on awning. I made the red and white awning with bulletin board paper. I added some “chalkboard” signs to show what we “sell” here. The chalkboard signs are actually made from black paper.

On the top shelf, you can see strawberries in baskets and a cash register. The second shelf has a basket of bracelets and some cups (more on that later).

The photo above shows the back side of the Strawberry Shop. Aprons hang on hooks on the back of our Art Center shelf (the Art Center is on the other side).

This photo shows the paper “chalkboard” signs that tell the prices for strawberry lemonade, baskets of strawberries, and strawberry ice cream. These are all things that the kids saw for sale at the real strawberry patch we went to on our field trip.

Some of the kids in my class volunteered to make this shop sign for our store. They took turns making the letters. (I wrote the letters in pencil for spacing and they traced.)

To make the paper “chalkboard” signs, I used pieces of black card stock paper. I had a huge set of sidewalk chalk that I bought on clearance at the end of summer, and I used this to make the signs. To give it a chalkboard effect, I rubbed white chalk over the whole paper using the side of the chalk, then wiped it off with a tissue. Then I used the colored chalk to make the signs.

I added receipt paper for the kids to write sales receipts, and this adds literacy to the center. Receipt paper can be found in office supply stores (or Walmart) and it’s not expensive.

Our cash register has play money. We also have old, used gift cards that the kids can use as credit cards.

These cups can be used for the kids to serve strawberry lemonade or strawberry ice cream. They are clear disposable punch cups. I printed out strawberry clipart, and taped them onto the cups with clear shipping tape.

This is our Open/Closed sign, also made with black card stock paper. The kids love these Open/Closed signs in all of our dramatic play centers.

When we went on the field trip, our strawberry patch had bracelets for people to wear when they had paid. Kind of like a wearable ticket. To make bracelets, I cut pieces of red ribbon. I put one staple in it to hold it together and wrapped green masking tape around the stapled part so it wouldn’t scratch the kids’ arms.

Have you created a dramatic play center connected to a field trip your class went on? What was it and what did you include? Please share in the comments below!

Where it Came From:

The aprons came from Hobby Lobby (red one) and a craft fair (gingham one).

The strawberries and green baskets are from a Lakeshore Learning counting set I ordered earlier this year. Unfortunately, it has been discontinued. Often Lakeshore products can be found on ebay. Also, I googled “plastic strawberries” and came up with several sources.

The market shelf with awning is the “Village Store” from Community Playthings. This shelf is the toddler size shelf, so the shelf is not tall. We use it just to display our store items, the kids don’t actually stand there the whole time. It works well for our class.

Disclosure: I was not paid or compensated in any way to promote any of the above products listed on this page. The links are provided simply to be helpful. 

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