Nursery activities: Our bright idea - Baby clinic
Thursday, August 9, 2007
The children at Cockfield Primary School nursery class enjoyed bringing their 'babies' to be measured and weighed at the role-play baby clinic they set up in their classroom.
PLANNED LEARNING INTENTIONS
To show care and concern for others
To use writing as a means of recording and communicating
To order two or three items by length or weight
To show an awareness of change
To engage in role play based on their own first-hand experiences
RESOURCES
- Two low tables
- four small chairs
- dolls
- baby clothes
- buggies
- baby accessories such as feeding bowls, bottles and toys
- books about babies
- measuring tape
- large scales
- card
- camera
STEP BY STEP
- Before the activity, contact a local health visitor to come to weigh and measure the children's dolls in the proposed role-play baby clinic. Send home a letter inviting parents to volunteer to have their babies weighed and measured. Collect a range of books and objects related to babies.
- Make clinic cards for the children's dolls from a folded sheet of A4 card, with a photograph on the front and columns to record the date, weight and length.
- Set up the clinic together, with a table for the health visitor and a row of chairs for 'parents and babies'. Arrange the weighing and measuring equipment on the table and create an interest table to display baby items and books brought in by the children.
- Have the children and parents sit on the chairs and bring their babies to the health visitor one by one, presenting their clinic cards to be updated.
- Allow plenty of time for the children to play freely in the baby clinic area after the health visitor has left.
Activities
- Ask the children to bring in photographs of themselves as babies and discuss how they have changed since they were born. Talk about their experiences of visiting a baby clinic, perhaps with a younger sibling.
- Create a wall display in the area with the children's baby photographs and photographs of the health visitor. Add appropriate captions dictated by the children.
