| An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away Aim: An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away is part of Social Studies curriculum based on the theme All About Me. Kindergarten students spend the year learning about themselves, their families, and the community they live in. Part of their community consists of community helpers, and doctors are great examples of these helpers. After taking a walk to the fire station to visit with firefighters and spending time with two police officers, the students have an opportunity to visit with a family physician. Students are becoming more aware of the many people that make up one community and how we all work together.
Objectives: Students will:
Share ideas about doctors and relate to their classmates.
Refer to their prior knowledge and information discussed to explain and support their ideas.
Prepare for a visit with a doctor by charting ideas, reading about doctors, and preparing thoughtful questions.
Have first-hand experience talking with a doctor and asking questions directly. |
Created
by:
Anna Tattan
Location: PS 40
Grade: kindergarten
Subject: Social Studies
Anna Tattan is a first-year kindergarten teacher in Brooklyn. She moved from Michigan to reach out to children with backgrounds different from her own, and she has discovered more challenges then ever imagined. Teaching has been a trial and error process and continues to be a work in progress.
If
you have any questions regarding this activity, please contact anna.tattan@gmail.com
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Vocabulary/Concepts: Community is a group of people who live in the same area. Community can also mean a group of people with common background or shared interests within a society, and the children will learn that our classroom is a community of students of similar background and shared interests. The students will learn the different names for a doctor and what doctors do
Procedures:
- Begin by charting student ideas about doctors.
- Who is a doctor?
- What does he/she do?
- What does a doctor look like? (What does he/she wear?).
- What instruments do doctors use?
- Give students time to share their own experiences with doctors, also giving students the opportunity to listen and respond to each other.
- Read A Day in the Life of a Doctor. Discuss what new information the students learned. Then give the students times to respond to the book. Students may draw and use new words used in the book to show something a doctor does throughout the day.
- Students will share their writing with the class. Gather students together and chart questions students may still have about doctors. Chart questions to ask the visiting doctor (or if no doctor is able to visit, chart questions that the students could ask a doctor).
- If possible, students could take a community walk to see what a doctor's office looks like from the outside.
Activities: Students will help the teacher chart ideas. Students will share experiences and knowledge about doctors. Students will respond to the discussion and the book about one day in the life of a doctor. Students will think of and express questions that still remain in their minds.
Extension/Followup: Students will write a thank you note to the doctor, noting something they learned from the visit. Students can make up a song, poem, play or story about doctors and what they do. Students can act out their creative activity during dramatic play time.
Homework: Students will go home and share their thoughts and questions about doctors with their families. Students will be able to label doctors as community helpers and will be able to show the similarities between doctors, firefighters and police officers.
Evaluation: Students will be able to label doctors as community helpers in further discussions and find a pattern in further studies on community helpers. (Please see lesson, “A Day in the Life of a Police Officer.”)
Standards Addressed:
Students will understand family and community in the present time.
Students will participate in a variety of group and individual activities, tasks, and play.
Students will understand that others may have differing opinions.
Students will respect the ideas of others.
Students: The students involved come from a monocultural community and low economic status. These are students who are young but are coming to school with some idea of who doctors are and what they do for a living.
Overall Value: Students have the opportunity to interact with a family physician, ask questions, and have a positive idea of how doctors help the community by helping those who are sick.
Teacher Tips: The lesson is guided by the students. If students bring up an interesting idea about doctors, go along with that thought. Students can be surprising.
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