Learn about Your Body with the Community Helper for D

I am finally getting around to our other Letter D Community Helper.....Doctor!  Last week we started on this with our Body Maps, and this week we got the chance to actually pretend to be doctors.

Supplies for a Pretend Doctor Office

• Dolls
• Doctor Kit
• Stickers
• Chart (no need to be fancy; I drew my own)
• Building Blocks (we used Duplos)
• Scale (we made one)
• 
  

Set-up Your Make Believe Doctor Office

We started by gathering all the doctor supplies in the house and a bunch of baby dolls. I numbered all the dolls with little stickers.

Then I made a chart for the girls to check off what they checked on the dolls.  It included height, weight, eyes, ears, mouth, pulse, and blood pressure.  I didn't have room for anymore, but the girls added temperature since they get that checked when they go to the doctor.

For the weight I made a little scale out of paper plates, yarn, and a hanger since our bathroom scale won't weigh things that light.  This way we could compare it to another stuffed animal of similar size.

Not sure why they chose this particular animal, but it was our comparison.

Since they haven't been taught about units of measure we decided to measure the patients' heights with big Duplo blocks.  They found it easiest to lay them down to measure them like you do real babies.

Then they put them on the exam table (piano bench) and used all their doctor tools to check them out.  If they appeared healthy they got shots, but if they had a fever they got medicine instead. 

They listened to their heart with a toy stethoscope.

The toy thermometer was used to check the baby doll's temperature, and I gave them a tiny flashlight to examine their patient's eyes.

Their little doctor's kit even included a sphygmomanometer (aka blood pressure cuff), so we pretended to take the doll's blood pressure as well.

Once they finished examining and recording all the information on their doll patients, they grabbed some stuffed animals as well. Hard to say if they enjoyed learning about Dentists or Doctors the most, but they are definitely enjoying the hands-on learning activities that accompany our Alphabet of Community Helpers.