Part of the fear associated with checkups is the variety of unfamiliar equipment used to poke and prod patients. Emphasize that these instruments are helpful, not harmful, and that nurses will use them gently. To empower your preschool class, spend some time creating medical instrument crafts; this will give them a chance to get to know the specific pieces of equipment they might encounter during an examination. For instance, make a stethoscope using items like string, plastic hose, small plastic funnels or circular pieces of paper. Other items to make could include a tendon hammer, thermometer or tongue depressor.
Devote class time to reading stories about nurses. Discuss the stories so that students can share their opinions or ask questions. At the end of the book, engage the students by asking them to share their own experiences at the doctor's office with one another. Ask them to describe something that scared them during the trip at first, but that afterward didn't end up being so bad. Ask them to disclose their least favorite aspects of the trip; this opens up discussion about why those aspects might have been unenjoyable, but that they are important to ensuring students stay safe and healthy.
There's no better way to prepare students for their next checkup than to take them to a doctor's office or hospital. Solicit local practices to find out about the possibility of taking a special field trip on a specific day. While you're on the trip, take a guided tour of the facility; investigate the various pieces of equipment with the help of a nurse, and go over the standard components of a typical checkup so the kids know what to expect. Allow the students to pose questions to the nurses about their jobs at the end of the tour.
Have the students try on a nurse's shoes for a day with a role-playing activity. Bring in some white smocks and nurse's hats for the kids to wear, and then have them pair off, giving each student some time to act as the nurse and the patient. The preschooler acting as the nurse will perform a pretend checkup on the child acting as the patient; the two can switch roles upon completion of the exercise. Talk about how the children felt acting as nurses, and ask them if their opinions of nurses have changed following the experience.