Vet Clinic – Pretend and Real

             
     Welcome to our StrongStart veterinary clinic.

 
Our children have shown a strong interest in animals so a vet clinic
was set up in our dramatic play  to let them explore the animals
further. 
 
The children practiced various methods of caring for the
animals.
       
Interviewing the owner and taking down important information
to help them decide what is wrong with the pet. 
Thanks to Let’s Go Fly a Kite for the inspiration for our
medical chart.
 
                            Inspecting each animal carefully.
 
Checking xrays and keeping them fed and watered.

After playing vet for several weeks we visited a real vet clinic
down the road from our school.

Dr. Joan showed us around the clinic.  The examination room
was small so we quickly went through it to the main room behind.
 
We saw where they do dental work and check blood through
a microscope.
    
They have medicine for the animals to take with them if needed.  

But our favourite room was the x ray room.
 
Dr. Joan explained how the x ray machine works and the importance
of wearing special clothing to take the pictures.
 
She let us try on the apron, collar, gloves and glasses to feel
the weight.

The children were pretty quiet up to this point.
 
But as she started to show us pictures the children began to guess
what kind of animal it may be and what was wrong with it. 
She also explained that these are old x rays and now they are
all done digitally through the computer.
      
The old x rays are so fun to look at – can you see all the
baby kittens in this one?

    
We moved on to surgery where Dr. Joan got dressed in her
surgical gear that keeps all her germs off her patient.  The
children asked how she cuts them open and she showed
them a scalpel and showed them the thread she uses to sew
them up again.

 
As we left Dr. Joan gifted each child with a hair net and mask so they
could do their own surgery.  Several parents reported back to me that
is exactly what their children did for the rest of the afternoon – play vet.
           
What would you add to a vet clinic dramatic play at your centre?
Thanks for playing along. 

Story–Who’s Been Here?

I found this library book that worked wonderfully
with our focus on animal tracks.

I brought the book to life by printing animal track images
and finding stuffies that matched the story.

I told this story a couple of times and was very pleased how
the children became involved guessing who had made the track.

Here’s my version, enjoy.

Animal Tracks

    
This week’s outside adventure was to the beach to search
for animal tracks.
 
There were several activities set up, the first was in their I Spy Nature Bag.
Find these birds; eagle and a seagull.
The children had an opportunity to use binoculars although it was easy
to spot lots of seagulls.
 
We finally spotted an eagle, it flew around above us before landing
on a telephone pole.
We have a lot of eagle’s here and it’s always impressive to see them.
 
There were lots of ducks on the water and as we were leaving we
saw Canada geese too.

A second activity was making tracks in the sand.
     
We did see tracks when we arrived, mainly from dogs,
but as we walked around we covered them with our boot tracks.
So we used these purchased plastic moulds.
 
By pressing the mould into the damp sand it left a print.
 
We mixed plaster of paris and poured it on the print.   We’ve done
this activity before but in the warmth of June and it dried pretty fast.
Not today.  It took almost the whole hour to dry enough to lift
without breaking.  We’ll do it again in the classroom later this week.

Another activity we did was inspired by Teach Preschool.
        
 
They picked the track they wanted and went in search of rocks, sticks,
shells, grass to recreate it.
 
Filling the bottom of the box with glue they were able to stick their
natural items on top.
       
 

Lastly we enjoyed a snack and story.
 
Mmm, hot chocolate, marshmallows and birdseed cookies were
perfect on this cool day at the beach.
 
I discovered this book about birds that led to a painting activity.
In the beginning they were all the same shape and colour – white.
So Mother Nature sent helpers to paint them.
 
 
After seeing the pictures of the variety of birds in the book they
painted their own bird.
  

A fun morning learning out of doors.