Miss Polly Had a Dolly
Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick
So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick
In came the doctor with his bag and hat
And knocked on the door with a rat-tat-tat
He looked at the dolly and he shook his head
He told Miss Polly to put her straight to bed
He wrote a prescription for a pill, pill, pill
"I'll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill"
I like this rhyme because it tells a very practical story. What do we typically do when someone is feeling under the weather? We seek professional advice. Kids love pretending to be adults and taking care of a doll is a familiar exercise for many kids. I especially love the presence of the word "prescription." It is a word that gets used quite a lot in life. When kids are exposed to words like this, they are building their vocabularies. And while "prescription" isn't a word that shows up in most beginning readers, it is a word that kids will eventually encounter. If they already know and understand the word, it will be so much easier for them to make sense of the word once they finally do come to it in its written form.