How to Setup a Donut Shop Dramatic Play Area

We setup this Donut Shop Dramatic Play Area in our house to pretend we’re selling donuts today! It’s such fun! I love seeing my kiddos’ imaginations work. Now, to make real donuts! There’s a recipe for that too!

My daughter loves to pretend she’s baking. She will get all the bowls and serving spoons out to pretend she’s whipping up a batch of cookies.

Then, she will go grab her blocks, pour them in a bowl, stir them up and ask me if I want soup. It’s really cute!

Since she loves baking and cooking so much, I thought it would be fun to make her a baker’s apron. You can see how to make that on Instagram. We made it out of a paper shopping bag, paint and ribbon! It was so fun to do together.

And to really help her creative thinking, I asked her if she’d love to play donut shop. I told her she could be the baker and I could be the customer. She said yes! So, we set out to make a donut shop in our play room.

Let’s get started!

Donut Shop Dramatic Play – Materials

• empty cereal box
• acrylic paint (pink, blue and yellow)
• foam brush
• scrap paper
• scissors
• 2 paper plates
• 2 paper cups
• hot glue
• hot glue gun
• table cloth
• table
• toy cash register
• shoe box lid
• foil
• menu
• play money

Donut Shop Dramatic Play – Craft Instructions

Step One. Make cardboard donuts. To make: trace a small lid on a cereal box 6 times. Then, trace a quarter in the center of those circles. Cut the circles out to make plain donuts. Then, have your child frost them with the acrylic paint and foam brush (2 pink, 2 yellow, 2 blue). Then, sprinkle scrap paper on top while the paint is wet. You have cardboard donuts.

Step Two. Make a cookie sheet or use a real one. To make: wrap a shoe box lid with foil.

Step Three. Make donut displays. To make: hot glue the bottom of a paper cup to the bottom center of a paper plate. We made two.

Donut Shop Dramatic Play – How to Play

We wanted even more donuts, a menu and play money! So, we made a printable! Woot! Woot! This makes it easy peasy for the not-so crafty!

You can get the printable at the end of this post.

Here is how we like to play donut shop:

We lay out a table cloth on our coffee table, set out our donut displays and place the menu out (menu is in the printable).

Then, we assign who is the baker and who is the customer.

The customer gets the donut dollars to buy donuts (donut dollars are in the printable). The customer orders donuts (“May I please buy 1 blue donut, 2 yellow donuts and 3 pink donuts?”)

The baker wears an apron and pretends to bake donuts on the cookie sheet. The baker takes donut orders and payment (“That will be $5, please.”). The baker hands the correct donut order to the customer (“Thank you for shopping with us! Come again!”).

I wanted my kids to practice manners while playing donut shop. So, I introduced them to the story Please, Mr. Panda by Steve Antony. The panda is trying to give away his donuts. But, no one is saying please. So, he keeps changing his mind and trying to find someone who wants his donuts. Finally, someone says please! He was just looking for the magic word.

We read the book before playing donut shop.

So, you can spend more time playing and less time shopping, here is an amazon affiliate link to the book at no extra cost to you. Just click the image below:

Donut Shop Dramatic Play – Bonus Activities

What is great about this printable is that you can introduce colors (pink, blue and yellow). You can do patterns with the donuts. Ask your child to line up the donuts in a specific order (pink, blue, yellow or pink, pink, blue, blue and so on).

Practice counting with the donut dollars. Each donut is one dollar or you may buy 6 donuts for five dollars. Have the customer count each dollar to the baker. And have the baker count each dollar before putting them in the register. The baker and the customer can count each donut too!

Make a garland out of the donuts! Simply print extra donuts out, cut them out and glue them to a long string of ribbon. Hang them for a real donut party or use as a decoration for the donut shop!

Make real donuts with your kiddos! These Mini Funfetti Cake Mix Donuts by Half-Scratched look so delicious!

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I hope you have such donut fun! Tag us in a pic of you playing donut shop on Instagram @themamaworkshop.

Did you miss our last dramatic play setup? We had a taco party! Check it out here: How to Setup a Taco Bar Dramatic Play Area.

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