14 Veterinarian Cut Outs (For Dramatic Play Or Display)

There’s a lot more to these veterinarian cut outs than meets the eye.

At first glance they look like a sweet little set of printable tools and animals for some cute vet dramatic play – and they definitely can be that. But once you’ve laminated them, you’ve got yourself a super open-ended resource that can be used in loads of different ways at home or in class.

Display props, math center counters, sensory bin treasures or conversation starters.

You get a great set of vet tools – a briefcase, stethoscope, thermometer, syringe, medicine bottles and a couple of band aids – plus four adorable animal patients waiting to be looked after: a kitten, a puppy, a hamster and a bearded dragon.

And you can find loads more community helper themed activities for your little learners here!

What Skills Can Your Little Ones Learn And Develop?

The skills your children can learn with these depends how you’re going to use them, but here’s a few possibilities:

• Fine Motor Skills – if you let them cut them out and when they’re handling the items
• Imaginative Play – pretending to be vets encourages creativity and role-playing.
• Vocabulary Building – learning the names of each item and discussing their uses expands vocabulary and language skills (a circle time where the items are passed around and the children guess what they’re used for could be really nice here!).
• Social Skills – dramatic play with peers fosters teamwork, cooperation, and communication.
• Problem-Solving – figuring out which thing to “use” for a pretend task encourages logical thinking.
• Empathy and emotional understanding – Caring for a small, sick animal is a gentle way to practice some kindness, name those big feelings and think about what someone else might need.
• Mathematical thinking – used as themed counters, the cut outs support counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting and early number sense.

How To Prepare These Animal Hospital Cut Outs

First you’re going to want to download the cut outs by clicking on the download button at the bottom of the page.

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Other Materials You’ll Need:

• Safety scissors
• Card stock or craft paper

Once you’ve downloaded them, you’ll need to print them off onto paper or card.

There’s fourteen items in the pack!

Then, you can cut them out. Or if you’d like your children to get some cutting practice, you can let them have a go.

Get Even More Out of These Veterinarian Cut Outs

Here are some different ways you could use these pretend play props.

Open a Full Animal Clinic

Set up a waiting room with a few chairs, a “reception” desk and an upturned box for the examination table. Add some soft toys as extra patients and let your little learners take turns being the vet, the nurse and the worried pet owner. To make it feel really official, hand out some printable ID card badges so every member of the vet team has their own name tag. This kind of open-ended role play is brilliant for storytelling, turn-taking and rich conversation.

Build a Community Helpers Display

Once laminated, add some velcro dots or sticky tack to the cut outs and stick them to a display board with labels. Children can take individual tools down to use during dramatic play, then return them to the display afterward – so it’s a working resource, not just decoration. 

Fix-It Fine Motor Station

Add some child-safe tweezers, cotton balls and the printable bandages, and set your little learners the task of gently “treating” each animal. Picking up a cotton ball with tweezers or placing a bandage is a proper workout for those little hand muscles.

Which Animal Starts With…?

Line up the kitten, puppy, hamster and bearded dragon and play a quick beginning-sounds game. “Can you find the animal that starts with ‘p’?” Cue the puppy trotting into the clinic. It is a playful way to tune little ears into initial sounds, and it sits neatly alongside your other beginning sounds activities.

Celebrate National Pet Week

If you want a real-world hook, National Pet Week lands in the first full week of May and is all about caring for the animals we love – a perfect match for this set. Set up the vet clinic that week, chat about how we keep pets happy and healthy and you have an instant themed activity. You can find it and plenty more dates worth marking on our Special Day Calendar.

Themed Counting Collection

Use the cut outs as themed counters for any counting, sorting or number sense activity. 

However you choose to use these vet-themed cut outs, I hope they get lots of use.

Enjoy and let’s nurture those neurons!