Our second Community Helper for N is Nurse! Obviously the girls are familiar with nurses from their own visits to the doctor. We could have done some activities similar to what we did when we talked about D is for Doctor, but I decided to do something different. So we also talked about how nurses administer medicine and give shots and just all around take care of the patients. Then, I put together a little activity using syringes.
We started by making paper nurses hats to wear; after all they need to be properly dressed! Here are the instructions we used for the Nurse Hat. The girls each decorated their own, so instead of having a red cross, we had a pink and purple one.
While they colored, I set up our medication station. I had three containers with colored water (you have to use lots of food coloring to get the colors pretty dark). Then I gave them small medicine cups to mix colors in and syringes to draw up the water in. I also set out coffee filters for them to administer their medicine to!
They always enjoy mixing up new colors and this was no exception. They filled the medicine cups with new colors and soaked bunches of coffee filters!
I laid the filters on newspaper to dry, and while they are pretty as is, I have more plans in mind for them (hope you come back to see them)!
After we pretended to be nurses, we took a little trip to a local nursing home (forgot my camera, so please excuse the phone pictures). Now I have to be honest, we didn't visit the nurses because we don't actually know any of them. We know the girls Aunt that works in occupational therapy there, and since the girls hadn't been there for a long time (and Eli never has been), I thought it best to keep with someone we knew this time. So they played with some of the things in the therapy room, and we walked around visiting with some of the residents and passing out cookies.
I think it was good that we didn't try to go visiting without someone we knew. All the kids acted a bit shy, but Nadia was glued to me. Next time should be easier, and we can always take our favorite nurse at the pediatrician some cookies when we go for check ups in a couple months!
