Learning about the doctor was so much fun!!  Today we began our monthly unit on Community Helpers and started off with "Helpers that Help Us"! 

Our book was Katie Goes to the Doctor by Liesbet Slegers.  It's a story about a little girl who gets sick with a fever and a cough.  Her mom takes her to the doctor's office.  At first, she is a little scared, but once she sees all the neat tools that the doctor uses, she is brave.  He gives her some medicine and she knows that even if it's yucky, it will make her feel better.  The kids loved listening to the story and all had to share about a time that they were sick and had to take yucky medicine.

I brought in some of the doctor's "tools" for the kids to explore.  We had masks, gloves, tongue depressors, a stethoscope, band-aids, and a reflex hammer.  Each child took turns dressing up like a doctor.  Then we listened to each others heart beat.  It was really fun to watch the kids eyes when they started to hear something through the stethoscope!  We checked everyone's reflexes and determined that we were all just fine!  Nobody needs a trip to the real doctor!  Let's hope it stays that way!

For art, we traced pictures of our arms on paper.  We colored them just like our skin and made several red spots for our "boo boos".  Then we pretended to be doctors again and put band-aids on the arm to make it feel all better.  This might have been our most successful art project yet.  The kids were really serious about applying those band-aids.  Everyone did such a great job, we all got one extra band-aid to wear on our bodies.  Who knew that was such a motivator??

Ms. Michelle and Ms. Erin came today and helped us all create individual Touch and Feel boxes for at home.  We added two kinds of pasta and a whole bag of fun things to explore and build fine motor skills.  The kids had so much fun building their boxes and then mixing up the contents.  Jewels, bag clips, pipe cleaners, paper clips, and pom poms make fun surprises to hide and find in the pasta.  Tucked inside your child's box in a sheet with more ideas for you to use at home.  Happy playing!

There was new mulch on the playground today and we all noticed it right away!  It gave us plenty to talk about and explore while we were outside.  Our weekday friends had so much fun running around in it, that several of our friends joined in and played too.  Even though it was a little chilly out there, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful first day of November!   Can't wait until tomorrow!!