myGanBlog: Is There a Doctor In The School?

There were many different doctors here at The Gan this week!

A look at this week:

Although we were closed on Monday, we still had plenty of fun time learning this week. We started our focus on Community Helpers, really focusing on the medical field. We spent time using the doctor kits in Home Living and the children were even able to put on the Doctor coat and pretend to be a doctor. This was fun since they had the chance to check out the tools doctors use as well as pretend to write in a patients file and keep track of their patients!

In the block area the children decided that they could build a hospital or a doctor's chair. Even though blocks is normally a favorite, the children seemed to enjoy the other activities even more this week. At art, we made chalk x-rays and then had to write what we took an x-ray of! In Math we pretended to fill a prescription by putting corn kernels into cups to match the number on the cups. In writing we used hair gel bags to trace the letters that you can find in many common doctor words, such as: doctor, nurse, office, chart, healthy, sick, shot, medicine, and x-ray.

For science this week the children played with water as they filled the liquid medicine spoons and droppers with water, trying to fill them to a specific amount. On Tuesday we made doctor bags. The children were able to pick their color bag and then they "sewed" it together. After that they had the chance to label their bag with "Doctor ________'s Bag." On Wednesday the children made watercolor x-rays. They thought it was neat that they painted the water colors onto a piece of white paper and an x-ray popped out (this was white crayon pre-drawn on the paper). They also made band-aid letters, trying to make the first letter in each of their names!

Listening In:

On Tuesday when I introduced the new topic I asked the children if they had ever been to the doctor's office. Of course they all had! I loved the one response I got:

"When you are leaning back in your chair and somebody is doing homework and somebody else is making dinner you fall and have to go get stitches. That is when you have to go see the doctor."

Looking Ahead:

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and next week we will be able to go to the Oregon Zoo on Monday! The children are still very excited for this trip and have been asking me to tell them when we are going. However, after the trip there on Monday, we will be back to our regular learning on Tuesday. We will be continuing with our community helpers by looking at dentists. This week we will be talking about clean teeth, looking at our teeth in mirrors and also using toothbrushes to do some creative art and writing!

Reminder: It is hard to believe that the end of the year is almost here. It has been a very fun and educational year for the children (and myself)! We will be having an end of the year program and graduation (for those going to Kindergarten and First Grade) ceremony on Wednesday the 16th. We hope to see you all there.

If you would like to schedule a time to come in and talk with me about the progress your child has made throughout the year, please let me know your availability and I will schedule you in. I normally like to do these conferences at the end of the school day (about 12:05 or so), once the other children have gone for the day.

Music and Me from last Friday. The children are learning about the different instrument families and this week was about the percussion family. They really enjoyed playing all the different instruments!