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HEALTH COLLAGES (Art)
Give each of your children a piece of heavy paper. Set out materials such as cotton swabs, tongue depressors, adhesive bandages, cotton balls, and gauze pieces. Talk about each of the materials and how they are used. Then let your children choose materials and glue or tape them onto their papers any way they wish to create collages.
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GET-WELL CARDS (Art/Social Studies)
Invite your children to make Get-Well Cards for children in a local hospital. Hand out pieces of white or light-colored construction paper. Demonstrate how to fold a paper in half to make a card. Help your children write get-well messages inside their cards, such as “Get well soon,” or “Hope you are feeling better,” and then sign their names. Then let them decorate their cards with crayons, markers or paints. Put the finished cards in a large envelope to take or mail to the hospital.
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COTTON BALL COUNTING CARD GAME (Counting/Numerals)
Select ten large index cards. Number five of the cards from 1 to 5. On the remaining five cards, glue one to five cotton balls. Mix up the order of the cards and lay them out on a table. To play the game, let your children take turns counting the cotton balls on the cards and matching them with the corresponding numeral cards. Continue the game until everyone has had a turn.
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TONGUE DEPRESSOR SHAPES GAME (Shapes)
Make a gameboard by using tongue depressors to form geometric shapes, such as a square, a triangle, a rectangle, and a diamond, on a large piece of posterboard. Trace around the tongue depressors with a fine-point marker. Set out the gameboard along with the tongue depressors. Then invite your children to take turns placing the tongue depressors on top of the outlines on the gameboard to create Tongue Depressor Shapes. If desired, continue by having the children use tongue depressors to make shapes on a table or carpet.
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LET’S STAY HEALTHY (Science/Health/ Movement)
Try the ideas below with your group to promote good health habits.
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Wash Hands Often: Practice washing for at least 15 or 20 seconds or as long as it takes to sing “The ABC Song.” |
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Eat Nutritious Foods: Display a Food Pyramid Chart and talk about healthy snack choices. |
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Exercise Every Day: Take an outdoor walk, dance to music, or do some jumping jacks. |
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See Health Providers Regularly: Invite a doctor or nurse to visit and talk to your children about what they do. Help the children make a list of questions to ask before the health provider visits.
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DOCTOR/NURSE PLAY CENTER (Dramatic Play)
Use the suggestions below to set up a doctor/nurse office in your room. Add your own ideas as well.
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Provide white coats (men’s white shirts with sleeves cut off work well) along with notepads and pencils. |
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Set out a baby scale, a stethoscope, and a tape measure. |
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Include materials such as adhesive bandages, tongue depressors, cotton swabs, cotton balls, and strips of gauze bandages. |
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Let your children take turns being the doctor or nurse and doing such things as listening to heartbeats, “writing” prescriptions, and weighing, measuring, and bandaging stuffed animal or doll “patients.” |
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IF YOU’RE GOING TO SEE THE DOCTOR (Music)
Tune: “Did You Ever See a Lassie?”
If you’re going to see the doctor,
The doctor, the doctor,
If you’re going to see the doctor,
Then here’s what she’ll do.
She’ll fix all your boo-boos
And help you stay healthy.
If you’re going to see the doctor,
Then that’s what she’ll do.
Liz Ryerson
Repeat the song substituting “nurse” for “doctor” and “he” for “she.”
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HEALTHY SNACKS (Food Preparation)
Talk about the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Set out several apples and have your children wash and dry them well. Cut the apples into wedges and give each child a small bowl of vanilla yogurt. Then invite the children to dip the apple wedges into the yogurt before eating.
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