Growing up, when my cousins and I would get together we would always come up with new and inventive ideas for dramatic play.  At times we ran a shoe store with all of my grandmother’s shoes that we would place a tag of our own, made-up price (which was a great math activity).  Other times we would run a snack shop or bakery.

My personal favorite scenario was our News Stand.  We made newspapers based on the information that we gathered from our own experiences or imaginations and modeled them after the structure of an actual newspaper article.

There are so many learning opportunities wrapped up in this scene.  I recommend sparking the idea with your little one “Oooh, let’s make our own newspaper today that Daddy can read tomorrow morning before he goes to work!”

I realize that times have changed and newspapers are not the main source of information, but I still think that this should be something that you and your child can do together that will build researching skills, teach your little one how to collect information and re-create it inventively, develop creative writing skills, and much more.  How exciting to see what your little one might come up with or what he/she is interested in writing about.   How many different articles might you have (a comic strip, a weather report, a community article, etc.)?  You and your little one could team up – you could be the journalist (writing down everything your little one dictates) while your little one is the illustrator.  There are so many open-ended possibilities!