Maybe because their memories of anything in white coats aren’t necessarily pleasant, kids love to play at being a doctor. It gives them a chance to torture some one else with a shot! Encourage this, and use it to introduce measuring activities and language skills.

Set up a clinic for her.  Give her a chair, and a table, with an empty writing pad to make her notes in, and a sheet of paper to record data.  If she has a doctor’s play kit, all the better.  Use her teddy bears and dolls as prop patients.

Act as the patient’s Mommy with four of your “kids” coming in to see her.   First up, let her measure the weight of each “child” by placing the doll on your kitchen weighing machine.  Let her note down the weight of the doll herself.

Next, let her use a measuring tape to measure the height of the child. D on’t worry about specifics – just the figure closest to the actual reading will do.

Tell her what’s wrong with the baby – she’ been sniffing and hasn’t been eating too well etc. etc. If she has a play doctor’s kit, she could use her stethoscope to listen to their heartbeat, give them shots etc.

Let her arrange all her patients by height, and weight.

There are plenty of opportunities to learn in everyday games.  If you play games with your preschooler that encourage learning, I’d love to hear about them.