Hi, everyone.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve noticed that kids have been talking about their experiences of being sick, needing to stay home or visit the doctor. Some kids have also been bringing in doctor play ideas they’ve tried at home or have seen in shows or stories.
We know that kids have had various real life experiences with checkups and Doctor visits for illness. Some may have had hospitalizations or intrusive procedures. People they know may be sick, hurt or exhibiting signs of physical decline. Many have some understanding that we wear masks to avoid illness or that events have been altered due to “the germ.”
In order to further extend their play and thinking around these concepts, we’ve transformed the bottom of our playhouse into a doctor’s office. Doctor and Dentist play can be important ways to help young children process experiences they might find confusing, unpleasant or overwhelming. In the classroom, we offer Doctor play with baskets of Doctor tools, books and ongoing narrations throughout the play to help children understand what the Doctor is doing, and why.
Even if you don’t have a toy dr kit at home, you can encourage your child to engage in imaginative doctor play. Kids can substitute other objects for the tools. Pretending to be the Doctor, patient, or the patient’s parent can empower kids and give them a sense of control over the experience. Very young kids might need some prompts from you to get started. You can suggest that one of their toys is sick or hurt, or take on the role of patient yourself. Kids are usually pretty excited to be the one telling adults they need to take medicine or lie down and rest, or giving them shots. You can model that thinking a happy thought or holding someone’s hand during the shot can help.
Below are some photos of our first week in our Park West’s Doctor’s office.
A couple of JK kids entered the playhouse and noticed the transformation, Where’s the food?! What? Doctor stuff?! They wanted to share the news with everyone else, Hey! There’s stuff in here! Two kids accompanied a teacher to the light switch. The teacher blinked the lights, and they were excited to share the news that the dishes and food are gone. It’s a doctor’s office now! (A few of the dishes and food items were actually transferred to the upstairs portion of our playhouse for any children wanting to continue tending to the babies or playhouse “house” together.)
Other children then came in to explore and tend to any animals, babies or JK kids as patients:
The doctor ordered up breathing treatments and prescribed inhalers for some sick animals
Here come some more patients!
A few doctors and nurses worked together to tend to their patients. Some patients were told they would need to spend the night in order to get some rest and feel better:
At group time that day, a teacher then demonstrated how children can access tools from their various baskets to treat their patients. During that process, we also discussed what we could call each object, Oh, yes. That’s right. Doctors have a tool for checking on our heartbeats and breathing. Does anyone know what this is called? Some children replied, A stethoscope!
Altogether, we pretended to treat a sick Hippo. A teacher did the jobs while children chimed in with their ideas. Oh, poor Hippo. Your ear is hurting? A child then shared, Aw, Hippo will need medicine. It has uh infection! We also talked through what can help us when feeling unsure or scared at the doctor’s office: hand holding, treats, and having good thoughts. We held onto Hippo as it got a shot and then gave it a cuddle.
To continue our discussion about going to the doctor, at storytime we read a book called Sally Goes to the Vet by Stephen Huneck.
Then, at tabletime, we built beds and tended to our sick animals:
We continued playing and treating patients throughout the week!
Have you been hearing about our doctor’s office? We hope this peek into the playhouse has helped you see how the doctor play has been going here at school.
If you have any questions about any further treatments, we will have the doctors give you a call soon!
Stay well,
Anita, Chris, Sarah