Hospital

Another month... another fun dramatic play center for our preschoolers!  The area is our kitchen, and we leave it as a plain housekeeping center for a week or 2 each month.  During the other weeks, though, we invite our kiddos to serve food at a restaurant, run an ice cream parlor, wrap presents at the gift wrapping department, care for babies in the nursery, and shop at the grocery store.

Our February theme is healthy bodies, and our dramatic play center is a Hospital.

The centerpiece of the Hospital is a cot that we use as a "Triage" area.  When patients arrive, they have to sign in at the reception desk, and then sit in the Waiting Room.

The doctors each have an Official ID Badge with their picture on it, and they can find their lab coat and a bag of medical supplies in the dress up closet.

The receptionist has an important job at the hospital, too.  He has to make sure all of the patients sign in, answer the phone to schedule appointments, and collect insurance information!

We keep all of the medical records in plastic sleeves on clipboards.  The doctors can write on the charts with a dry erase marker, and then erase them after the patient heals.

The hospital offers a full range of services including casts, blood pressure screening, (lots of) shots, and vision exams.

Baskets of medical tools are located around the hospital.  We labeled each tub with a picture so that at the end of each shift, the orderlies would be able to return the equipment to the right spot!

Our students love, love, love this center!  Many of them spent the entire hour and a half of centers being patients, doctors, nurses and other hospital workers.  They love to take care of the teachers and each other.  So much learning takes place as they negotiate their roles, discuss their health issues, use new vocabulary and interact with each other.  (And, I would be remiss if I didn't thank Doc McStuffins for teaching them all to make a "diagnosis"!)

All of the signs, labels, name tags and medical record forms for this hospital center are available here.

Have fun playing and learning with your children today!