PreK Visits Abington Memorial Hospital

The excitement of taking our first field trip together on a real school bus was felt by all! The energy in the classroom on the days building up to the trip was quite amazing to observe and the pure joy of the thought of riding on a school bus filled conversations at lunch, snack, meetings and quiet rest time! We were reminded about the simple things in life and the importance of honoring and celebrating what is truly important and meaningful to our children..

Visiting Abington Memorial Hospital was a wonderful way to extend our study of community. Throughout the past several weeks we have explored community in the context of our classroom community, our connections and relationships with people in our AFS community, places in our Jenkintown community, what it means to be a community helper and how certain community helpers work to keep every community in safe. Visits from firefighters, police officers, nurses, therapists, SPCA volunteers and principals were just a few of the community helpers who visited our classroom and talked to our children about their role in the community. Visiting our local community hospital seemed like a perfect way to continue to support the children's interest and learning about community. Several of our children had selected a health care community helper to research and we observed tremendous interest and joy as the children played with their doctor and nurse dress-up props whenever they were open in our Dramatic Play area.

The volunteer department of the hospital offers a wonderful, age appropriate private lesson that acquaints the children with many aspects of a hospital visit. The children watched a brief video of children coming into the hospital for an overnight stay and seemed to get a glimpse of what that experience may look like. Seeing children in hospital night -gowns, resting in hospital beds and talking with their doctors and nurses helped to bring this experience into a much more realistic light. The children tried real stethoscopes and listened to each other's heartbeats. Our session focused on healthy bones and keeping our bodies healthy and we were fortunate to have a orthopedic nurse lead a in-depth session on this topic. The life size skeleton was a favorite for all and the children had the opportunity to look at ex-rays, casts for the arm and leg, and crutches. We discussed healthy eating and exercise that supports the development of healthy bones and the children received a fun activity book to take home.

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