Is There a Doctor in the House?

Feel Better Frog from Manhattan Toy

We're learning all about doctors and nurses here at Small Talk this week, so what better time to bring out another one of my favorites:  Feel Better Frog!  If you're not familiar with this toy, let me fill you in.  This poor little frog is not feeling well, but has all the accessories to help him get better in no time!  He sneezes or blows his nose when you hold the tissue to his face, slurps soup off the spoon, and tells you if he has a fever or not when the thermometer is in his mouth.  He even tells you when he's hungry!  Kids and parents alike find this toy hilarious and engaging. I usually add my Fisher Price Doctor Kit to the mix, and then we can check poor Froggie's ears, give his a shot or two and listen to his heart.  Playing doctor is a great way to introduce new vocabulary and practice lots of language goals!

To go along with this theme, I made a Patient Chart using Boardmaker.  We talk about who the patient is, what happened to him, what we did to make him feel better, and what instructions we gave him to do at home.  I help the child complete the chart by showing him a page of choices for each question on the chart.  We review/name each of the choices and select one to put on the chart.  When the chart is complete, I have the child tell about the patient he treated, using the chart as prompts.


For example, the child might say, "Teddy Bear came to the doctor today.  He fell off his bike and hurt his knee.  I put a bandaid on it.  I told him to go home and rest."

If you'd like to download my charts and choices, you can find them at these links:  Chart Choices, Chart Choices 2 and Patient Chart.  Sorry for the multiple downloading, but I posted these before knowing how to link PDF's together in one file.  Oh well, they're free, right?

Another great way to work on sequencing, vocabulary and language skills is to make an interactive story of the child pretending to be a doctor using your iPad or iPhone.  There are several great apps that allow you to take photographs within the app itself and then use them to create a story, but the one I used today was Stories 2 Learn by MDR.  It's easy to use and a story can be completed quickly.  Check it out in the App Store.

Just take a picture of the child using your iPad or iPhone, or import a photo from another camera.  Add the text by typing in the text box, and audio if you desire.  Save your page, and add another.  Your story can be as long or as short as you want it!  The pages of the story look like this:

Kids just love to be the stars of their own stories, and this is a great way for them to work on their speech/language skills, too!

Nice chatting with you!

Pam