Field Trip..... to the Dr.'s Office???

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Lately it seems as though we are at the Dr.'s office every other day....  At least last week we were.. and that was just with one child!  This week it was two appointments in two days, with another one.

People have asked me,  "So what do you do for school when you have 4 kids and one has a Dr. appointment? "

Well, the quick answer is that we "school" through the appointment. 

Dr.'s offices walls contain a wealth of informational material!  When we are at the Orthopaedist, we study the skeletal and muscular systems that are up on the wall.  We discuss how tendons and ligaments help our bodies move.  We practice movement with our uninjured parts and try to see what muscle on the chart is working in our body.  We also sound out the complicated medical terminology, looking for the Latin bases to the words to help us understand what the word means.

We learn about the equipment that is being used.  The Otoscope, looks in our ears.  The Blood Pressure cuff and how it works to measure the flow of blood in our body.  We talk about how X-ray machines work and what those beeping boxes are on the walls in emergency rooms.

My favorite is when you are in a room with a model ear or intestines or brain.  I never let it sit on the counter, it is always picked up and discussed.  We learn by touching the hammer and the anvil in our model ear, we pull out the hemispheres in the brain model to reveal the cerebral cortex and discuss its functions.  Intestines are terribly interesting, and we will talk about absorption, and peristalsis and how our food moves from our mouth and through our body.

Curiosity is the key to learning while you are at the Dr.'s office.  Don't be afraid to ask your doctor questions while you are there about the things you see on the wall or counters, or pick up the card that usually accompanies the model as your answer key.  If there isn't one, come home and look up what you saw on the computer or in your science book and learn some more.

Lots and lots of Dr. appointments doesn't mean you have to miss school.  Thinking of them as a science field trip, can create an endless amount of opportunities for learning