Fortunately for our poorly patients at Jollies the other day the answer to this question was most definitely!!!
The love of all things roleplay continues for many of our children in Free-Flow…
After breakfast the children were spontaneously roleplaying looking after each other in the upstairs area of the room, so Natalie went upstairs to our magical attic and brought down the hospital roleplay box to extend her children’s interests of all things hospital.
Natalie added the doctors and nurses’ outfits, bandages, first aid kits, x-ray pictures and lots of other things so our children could create their very own Jolly hospital.
They had a bed on the floor for the poorly patient and even a waiting room, where the other poorly patients were able to sit and wait.
They took it in turns to be the doctor and the nurse and the poorly patient and they all did amazingly; being very imaginative when it came to talking about what was wrong and the symptoms they were currently experiencing, before much discussion about how they were then going to make the patient feel better!
They also had clipboards to practise their fine motor skills as they made detailed notes writing about all the patients’ symptoms and which medications they might need to prescribe. The medical teams also observed their patients closely so they could add in lots of detail as to what exactly appeared to be wrong.
They liked performing regular checks/observations on their patients; talking about their blood pressure, their temperature and also looking into ears and eyes.
This was a great activity as it derived initially from the children’s interests and was then sensitively extended to progress their play, learning, knowledge and understanding as Natalie carefully scaffolded to further their ideas in a fun way. All the children maintained focus for ages and they worked together brilliantly as they loved being imaginative together developing their play ideas and exploring different scenarios…. We think we may have some future medics in the making here at Jollies… watch this space!!!! 
xxxx
