Playing Doctor

We have continued to struggle with illness here this week, especially Littlest.  She has been pretty much permanently glued to me, making it difficult to do basic activities, let alone full blown preschool.  We did have a window yesterday where they were feeling a bit more chipper after some medication so we pulled out our Teacher Guide (this is a great resource for direct teaching and inspiration for activities outside of "school") and used it to help us come up with a fun play schema we haven't explored much--Doctor.  Since we were just at the doctor's office on Monday to see what he could do for us, it was fresh in their minds.

I brought out the Check Up unit and read through the days activities.  Miss M didn't want to decorate her doctor's bag, just fill it up with anything she could think of like lots of bandaids, tongue depressor, a stethoscope, and a "poky thing" to give shots (we settled on a pipe cleaner as the safest option).  We have one of my husband's old white shirts in our dress up box and it became the perfect doctor's coat. Her flashlight from Grammie was just the thing to use as an otoscope.  We procured a patient (Mr. Henry Bear, a most favorite stuffed animal) and the examination commenced.

I loved how thorough Miss M was with her examination.  She checked his throat and ears, just like she remembered her doctor did.  We even used our new in-the-ear thermometer to check his temperature.  He was diagnosed with an "owie", treated with a bandaid and a kiss and sent on his way.  It was really fun watching her talk to him, listening to the new vocabulary words she picked up at her appointment and was able to use correctly in context.  Play is such a powerful learning tool.  

Littlest played Nurse to Doctor M, which had me smiling like a crazy person.  I am so entertained by my children, I really don't need a TV.  After a while, Miss M decided she was done being a doctor, though, and we played a game of Fitness Dominoes.  I've never been a big dominoes player but I was really enjoying the game and was a little disappointed when her attention fizzled half way through.  It would be fun to challenge her to see what kinds of shapes we could make or put two play figures on either side of the playing area and see if we could build a path to connect them both.

We are leaving town tomorrow and I plan on going through the remaining units to see what will travel well to keep the girls entertained in the van.  I think will bring along the dominoes game, it would be a fun one to play with the grandparents.  I also recorded myself several of our books with my new camera and my husband will be uploading them to their iPads so they can read in the car without having to pack an entire library.  Add some coloring pages and pray for naps and we should be good.