FLEX (Flexible and Enhanced Learning) practicums with the RBS offer medical students an exciting opportunity to work with children, the RBS team of experts, and medical student mentors. RBS FLEX students participate in Dr. Bear and other community visits as well as work with academic experts to develop resources. Learn more FLEX opportunities with the RBS on the FLEX info page.

A Visit to Dr. Bear is a learning module designed for children to explore healthy living through facts, story time, and play. Dr. Bear visits occur virtually, in-person or as a pre-recorded video session. Additionally, a guide is available for teacher’s who would like to conduct their own Dr. Bear session. show Each visit includes an interactive story, which introduces children to common reasons for visiting the doctor. Throughout the story, medical students use teddy bears to demonstrate procedures that children might experience at a doctor’s office, such as a checkup, a vaccination, or listening to their heartbeat.

Kindergarten and StrongStart Classroom Visits

During Kindergarten and StrongStart classroom visits, student ambassadors share the joy of books and bears with young children in a 50-minute visit involving reading, singing, and tons of bear facts. The key is to make a positive impression of reading on young children and support their learning and curiosity in a multicultural and loving atmosphere.

Canuck Place and Ronald McDonald House

RBS ambassadors also share their love of reading and bears with children at Canuck Place Children’s Hospice and Ronald McDonald House. During these visits, RBS ambassadors bring along teddy bears to read and sing songs with children.

The buddy reading program is an early literacy environmental stewardship reading buddy program that connects youth from various schools or within a school. The RBS buddy reading program is based on the BC kindergarten curriculum and embraces the eight bear species to encourage cultural sensitivity. Each child is given a special teddy bear that acts as a reading partner to encourage children to practice reading at home.

The My Bear activity booklet that is completed at each buddy session was specifically created under the guidance of literacy expert, Dr. Linda Siegel and the RBS advisory board. This activity booklet guides each peer buddy reading session and introduces children and youth to bear habitats and facts about bear diversity and health-related topics such as sleep, gratitude, and nutrition. Over the course of one year, the peer comes in for eight one-hour sessions to read with a kindergarten child. The high school peers have a reflective writing module and post-visit activities to further promote empathy and compassion via the peer buddy relationship.