Caillou is sick so his mother takes him to the doctor. This book gently describes a visit to the doctor’s office and helps remove some  of the  fears that children associate with a doctor and his office.

Materials

• Hand Washing Chart
•  Doctor equipment for flannel
•  Small box of Q-tips
•  Scale and Measuring tape
•  Tongue depressors-many 

Vocabulary

• Fever (When your body is feeling really hot and you feel sick)
• Stethoscope (the tool the doctor uses to listen to your heart)
•  Tongue depressor (the flat stick the doctor uses to look at the inside of your mouth and down your throat).                

Before Reading the Story

 Cut out each piece of the Doctor equipment pieces to the group.  Tape one piece at a time to a white board or flannel board.  Ask the children if they know the name of the tool and what it is used for?  After you have gone through all the pieces with the children, play What’s Missing?   Cover the board with a sheet and remove one flannel piece.  Ask the children if they can name what tool is missing?  Continue guessing what is missing and naming Doctor tools.  After you have finished playing this game, introduce the book. Show the front cover, what is the thing that  Caillou has in his hand?  Ask if anyone has ever been sick and had to go to the doctor.  Give the children several minutes to talk about their own experiences at the Doctor’s office.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; grows in eagerness to learn about and discuss a growing range of topics, ideas, and tasks.

Reading the Story

 Point out Caillou’s face as you read the story.  Can the children tell how Caillou is feeling?  Can they make their facial expression match his?           

Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; progresses in responding sympathetically to peers who are in need, upset, hurt, or angry; and in expressing empathy or caring for others.

After Reading the Story

Tell the children that people can get sick from germs. Germs are all around and we get them by touching things and then putting our hands near our mouths.  Remind them that handwashing is the best way to be a germ buster.  With the children go through the steps of washing your hands the proper way and have the children act out the actions (turn on the water, wet your hands, apply the soap, scrub and scrub, do your fingers, do tops and bottoms, rinse your hands under the water, get a paper towel and dry your hands, turn off the water with the paper towel, throw the towel in the garbage).

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; sho0ws growing  independence in hygiene, nutrition, and personal care when eating, dressing, washing hands, brushing teeth, and toileting.

Discovery

 Measure and weigh the children.  Put a growth chart on the wall so they can visually see how tall they are.  To show weight, use 10 frames.  (If Kelly is 42 pounds you would use 4 10 frames and 2 squares cut from another 10 frame.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Music and Movement

Teach the children the poem, Miss Molly.  Make actions to do along with the words.  

Miss Molly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick

So she called for the Doctor to come quick, quick, quick

The Doctor came with his bag and his hat

And he knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat-tat

He looked at that dolly and he shook his head,

Miss Molly put that dolly straight to bed.

He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill,

I’ll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill.

Creative Arts/ Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances.

I think this is called the Rhyme Time Band, find a good beat for yourself.

Shake your body part that rhymes with sand,

Rhymes with grand, rhymes with land.

Everybody shake your hand!

Now jiggle a part that rhymes with peg,

Rhymes with egg, and rhymes with beg.

Everybody, jiggle your leg!

Now circle a part that rhymes with smolder,

Rhymes with colder and with boulder.

Everybody circle your shoulder!

Now wink a part that rhymes with buy,

Rhymes with cry and rhymes with tie.

Everybody wink your eye!

Swing a body part that rhymes with farm,

Rhymes with charm, rhymes with harm.

Everybody swing your arm!

Now bend a part that rhymes with tree,

Rhymes with bee, and rhymes with me.

Everybody bend your knee!

Now twiddle a part that rhymes with drum,

Rhymes with crumb, and rhymes with gum.

Everybody twiddle your thumb!

And twist a part that rhymes with lips,

Rhymes with sips and rhymes with zips.

Everybody twist your hips!

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; progresses in recognizing matching sounds and rhymes in familiar words, games, songs, stories, and poems.  AND Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Blocks

 Add a bowl of tongue depressors to the center for creative building.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Art

 Use Q-tips to paint with watercolors.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor SKills; progresses in abilities to use writing, drawing, and art tools, including pencils, markers, chalk, paint brushes, and various types of technology. AND Creative Expression/Art; begins to understand and share opinions about artistic products and experiences.

Sand and water

 Put a very small amount of sand into the table today and give the children tongue depressors to use as writing sticks.  Can they write the letters of their name in the sand? Can they make a D for doctor?

Literacy/Early Writing; progresses from using scribbles, shapes, and pictures to represent ideas, to using letter-like symbols, to copying or writing familiar words such as their own name.

Library and Writing

Put out the pictures of the doctor tools.  Can the children name the different tools?  Do they know what they are used for?  This is an individualized review of what you did at your story time today.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; grows in eagerness to learn about and discuss a growing range of topics, ideas, and tasks.  AND Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; uses an increasing complex and varied spoken vocabulary.

Dramatic Play

 If you have a Doctor play set, put this out today.  Encourage the children to take turns being the Doctor and the Patient.  Can the patient articulate what they are pretending to be ill with?  Does the Doctor seem to have an understanding of what Doctor’s do?  You can also have the children use stuffed animals for their patients.  I like to purchase a box of cheap bandages that the children can apply to each other.   Remind the children not to put the thermometer into their mouth but perhaps under their arm or behind their knee. 

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.  AND Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions,; and for varied other purposes.

Math and manipulatives

Make a tongue depressor domino game.  Draw a colored line to divide the tongue depressor and put dots on each half.  The children can then use these to play dominos.

Mathematics/Number & operations; begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects.

Outdoor Play

 If you have a wagon on the playground you can teach the children about paramedics.  The wagon can be the ambulance and you can use scarves as bandages for wounds.  

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them. 

Transitions

As you dismiss the children to the next activity have them take turns telling the steps for handwashing.  The first child tells step 1 and goes off, ask what comes 2^nd, that child tells and goes off, etc.  If you finish all the steps, begin again.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.