Wantagh Kindergartners Treat Teddy Bears In Lesson With Medical Pro

WANTAGH, NY — Kindergartners at Wantagh’s Forest Lake Elementary got to bring their favorite teddy bears, stuffed animals and plushies to school Tuesday for a very special trip to the “Teddy bear clinic,” a program the school offered that taught students how to be healthy and safe by posing as medical professionals who had to treat their plush pals.

The program was led by Good Samaritan Hospital injury coordinator Stacey Pinto, who instructed students on the importance of everyday safety measures like wearing seatbelts, wearing a bike helmet and being safe when playing outside. The lesson, district officials said, was especially important as spring continued to, well, spring, and students began spending more time playing outside.

When it came time to treat the teddy bears, students took on the role of doctors and nurses, donning scrub hats and gloves and going to work with bandages, gauze, medical tape and tongue depressors. Regardless of the results of their fluffy friends’ physicals, the newly appointed medical pros had to fill out a full set of paperwork listing their stuffed animals’ diagnoses and the plans for their treatment.