The Pet Shop

 

The Pet Shop is up and running and many of the children are very excited and engaged in a variety of learning outcomes when in the pet shop.

 

First when the children are working behind the counter they are communicating and asking the customer, "what type of pet they wish to buy" and telling them the price of the pet. I have been working with them to push the number on the cash register that corresponds with the price of the pet. This is reinforcing identification of numbers from one to ten. There is also a telephone which sometimes (pretends to ring) and when children are answering the telephone they are working on their communication skills.

The children are communicating and learning about food for pets, and the types of pets, and suggesting how to take care of the pets.

In a few days I will ask the children to offer some ideas of others things they want to add to the pet shop.

Thank you to some of the families for allowing us to borrow some of the stuffed pets in order to make the centre more successful.

 

 

Here are some of the pet cages the children painted the boxes with small paint rollers. The cage (carry case) on top of the cages I bought for the centre.

 

These two cages were purchased by me.

 

This is the counter where customers come to purchase a pet or pet food. You can see the cash register and the telephone.

The table is where the children make name tags for the pets, leashes and collars and decorate bags and pet food. This is a very busy part of the centre. This encourages the children to write and draw.

 At the end of the day the children make sure

the pets are all placed neatly in the cages or

on the shelf. They are excellent at ensuring the

pet shop is left neat and clean daily.

 

This is the sign of the afternoon pet shop which

is called Great Pet Shop. The children wrote the sign

and decorated the sign by drawing a variety of pets.

The children voted for the name of the Pet Shop. Three

names were listed and Great Pet Shop won the most votes.

 

The same procedure was followed by the morning class.

However, the name of their shop is New Pets.

 

 

Some parents are asking how long the pet shop will be active. I follow the children's lead before changing the Dramatic Play Centre. When I find the centre is not being used as often as it once was, then as a large group we make a list new ideas and the children vote on it. Last time the morning class decided upon the pet shop. When there is a change it will be up to the afternoon class.

 

Some things we had last year were: a bat cave, a hair salon (with manikins being used), restaurant, grocery store, Christmas centre, etc. It was usually changed about every three weeks or four weeks at the very most.