Williams-Ridge - understanding through play

I came in class one day because there was a child who was having a difficult transition, and he had gone to the doctor earlier in the day, and there was a book on the shelf that talked about, it was actually Berenstain Bears “Trip to the Doctor” and we sat down and we read the book. And he started to ask a lot of questions about, you know “well what is that tool?” (it was a stethoscope), and I said “well there’s lots of tools that doctors use in the office to help take care of people”, and when we were done with the book we went into the teacher closet and everything was arranged by subject. And we pulled out the doctor bin, and were able, and so I said, “Choose five things that you’d like to take back into the classroom” and took them back in, and he started to use them with the dolls that were in the classroom, and I was able to give him a firm understanding of what the doctor was doing, and even a little bit more about why.