Baby Nursery Dramatic Play for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten

A baby nursery dramatic play center is so much for your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students! Plus, I am going to show you how to pack in literacy and math skills so students are learning academics while playing in the pretend area. The baby nursery is a great theme for an all about me theme, family study, or a nice option for a general dramatic play setup.

Get all the Baby Nursery Dramatic Play printables and the All About My Family Pack to make planning a breeze!

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Baby Nursery Dramatic Play

Create a nursery drop-off area for students to bring their babies to daycare and check-in. I have the schedule, a clock, the nursery hours, and an open and closed sign. Students can also sit and read books to their babies, which is such a simple way to put literacy and book-handling skills into the pretend center. Have students sign in when they drop off or pick up to practice names and writing skills.

The daycare worker can have the person dropping off complete the form for the baby. Students will be able to use their imaginations to name their baby, decide how old they are, and what supplies they packed for the baby for the day. The childcare center worker can complete the daily report about the baby’s day to give to the person picking up.

Set up your baby supply area so students can easily see what you have and where to put it back when clean-up time comes. You do NOT need this much stuff to have a successful and fun baby nursery. Depending on your students, sometimes less is more. If you have students that like to dump and leave, only put out a few things or simple props, or if you have friends that don’t like to sort and clean, put one item out of each category.

To keep students engaged for more than 1 week, I only put out part of the props to start. Then, I add new things to keep interest alive in the students. For example, I might keep hats, sippy cups, snack containers, and first aid items until the second week. In the third week, you could add new food, a different kind of carrier/stroller, and the bath area.

Baby of the Week is another writing form that is in the printable pack. Students can practice writing skills, letter formation, and spelling skills while playing. Students can pretend to write, scribble, or actually form letters and words depending on their level.

Create a diaper change area with some DIY items, and your students will have a lot of fun changing diapers and strengthening their fine motor muscles. The changing table is a towel folded up with a blanket wrapped around it. I have some DIY diapers from felt (keep reading for how to make them) and some dried wipes. I also have some DIY lotion, diaper cream, and baby powder. You can use empty containers and put paint inside to make it look full. After they are dry, add the labels. For the diaper cream, I used a travel squeeze pouch with dried paint inside, but you could also use an empty apple squeeze pouch or an empty toothpaste tube.

Make your own baby diapers and wipes for the baby nursery dramatic play area. I used felt and cut a diaper shape that would fit the baby dolls I have. Then, a piece of velcro was hot-glued to each corner so it could be closed. For the wipes, I grabbed a pack from the dollar store, cut the hole bigger, and took all the wipes out. I laid out 10 or so to dry and saved the rest to use in the classroom. Once the 10 were dry, I put them back in the wipe pouch, and students can use those when changing diapers.

You can find a lot of these items at thrift stores, or you can ask your families for donations if you don’t want to buy new ones. My trick is to use premie or newborn-sized clothes so students can put the clothes on independently. The doll clothes are tight and hard to put on and take off independently, but the premie sizes make it easier for students to develop these self-help skills. If you get matching sets, students can practice matching and sorting too.

In the middle of the baby nursery dramatic play center, I have the table set up with high chairs. The baby cribs are also set up with some toys for them to use with their babies. You can find a lot of these items at thrift stores, or families may donate them to you when they are done with them at their houses.

For lunch time, students fed their babies pom poms. These work so well to help develop fine motor skills to scoop and transfer the pom pom to the baby’s plate or mouth.

Make your own DIY food containers by painting the inside to match the food color. Then, I put two matching pom poms inside for the food. I found these plastic containers at the dollar store but I used glass baby food jars for years in my classroom. The floor was carpeted, though, so keep that in mind when deciding what to use. Students are working on color identification, sorting, and healthy food choices.

I stored the baby food in the fridge area of the pretend center. You can use empty baby food containers for added environmental print or make your own by using empty containers with labels. You could ask families to save containers for your DIY prop ideas. There are baby food labels and a prop suggestion list in the baby nursery dramatic play pack.

For the feeding supplies, I have cups, snack cups, bottles, bibs, burp clothes, and a diaper bag. The diaper bag is an old lunch tote and was the perfect size. If you can incorporate different sizes of things, definitely do. This is a great learning opportunity for students. You can make a lot of burp clothes by cutting up a blanket if you need to.

Set up your kitchen so students can prepare food for their babies and practice washing their hands and dishes.

Creating a bath station in your baby nursery dramatic play area is a wonderful way to incorporate self-help and hygiene skills into your classroom. The wreath tubing is cut into pieces in the bathtub. Add in lots of accessories like towels, washcloths, hair brushes, toothbrushes, soaps, and lotions. Be sure to empty all the containers before setting them out for your students. Leave the lids on because that is great fine motor work too!

Make a designated stroller parking area so students know where to put the strollers when they aren’t using them.

You can also set out baby carriers for students to use when they move around the center. You can see that the premie/newborn clothes work perfectly on the baby dolls. They are roomy enough for students to put them on the dolls themselves.

Are you ready to set up a baby nursery dramatic play in your classroom yet? I am telling you, it is such a fun theme and can be packed with literacy and math skills, too. Students will also be strengthening fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and hand-eye coordination. Your young children will also develop social skills and imaginative play in the dramatic play space. Grab all the baby nursery printables today to set up your pretend play area for your little learners!

Complete your family theme with the All About My Family pack.

Find books for your family theme here.

See the baby nursery in action here on the Pocket of Preschool YouTube channel!

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