Tuff Spot A-Z: H is for hospital!

We’re thrilled to be taking part in Adventure of Adams’ wonderful Tuff Spot A-Z again, and this week we have the letter H- for hospital!

This is an activity I’ve wanted to do with Bella for such a long time, and I’m so glad that the lovely Emma gave me the prompt that I needed!

The Preschooler has loved her dollies since she was old enough to express an interest in toys. She has SO many of them now, and she is never happier than when she is pottering around playing mummy (or sometimes daddy) with them all. We have dolly beds, dolly high chairs and dolly potties. We have prams, we have buggies and we have baby carriers. You name it, we have it!

Another interest, a more recent one, is hospitals. Perhaps it stems from our many visits together during Elsie’s pregnancy, and more recently for various hospital appointments we’ve attended. The Preschooler also talks a lot about visiting me in hospital when Elsie was born, so I wanted to do some activities that linked these two interests together.

So, white coat on, best shoes squeezed into, and we’re ready!

And so we have H is for (dolly) hospital! I wanted to use the Tuff Spot for one of it’s greatest uses- as a base for messy play! And what messier than plaster casts? The idea is not my own (I wish it was!), it comes from the wonderful Anna at The Imagination Tree and I have to say it was fantastic fun!

I ordered the mod roc bandages from Amazon and already have lots more ideas for how to use them in other activities!

First we cut them into strips- a great opportunity for The Preschooler to practise her cutting skills.

No mean feat, seeing as the bandages are laden with plaster of paris, so a lot thicker and harder to cut than paper.

We then arranged our dollies in order of most poorly. Hearing The Preschooler tell us why they were in hospital and what terrible accidents had occurred was wonderful- her imagination is coming on so well! We talked about how many bandages each dolly would need for their various broken bones, and counted out the strips for each one. And then came the best part!

Making the bandages was such fun. We used a bowl of warm water in the Tuff Spot and dipped the bandage strips in- and watched as they ‘melted’ and became soft and slippery.

The Preschooler wasn’t so keen on getting her hands messy at first, but when she saw the finished bandages she soon changed her mind!

 

The mod roc bandages dry really quickly, so while Dr Bella was checking for heart beats and eating lunch, they set to work. Within an hour, the casts were hard and we had the opportunity to talk about their change of state and the differences between hard and soft, wet and dry.

 

I left the dolly hospital out for The Preschooler to dip into through the day- she tends to like to take her time and go back to activities like this. When the bigger ones were home from school, she dived straight back in again and they all had a go at signing the casts!

This has been a wonderful activity for us all, and it has been lovely to be able to observe how The Preschooler plays now that she is a little older, and now that her brother is at school. Her imagination is beautiful and her role play skills are developing brilliantly too. Next time I will extend this activity by talking about the parts of the body, and adding more opportunities for mark making and counting too. For now though, we’ve had a ball with our dolly hospital!

Please do pop over to Adventures of Adam to check the schedule for the rest of the Tuff Spot A-Z challenges,  and have a look at all the other fantastic activities that are featured on the main site, and the fab Facebook page too!