HELP! Teaching Sex Ed

1- See if you can shadow someone else teaching in their school first.
2- Know and understand your state and school systems sex ed. requirements and limitations.
3- Consult other groups. Our health dept. or council on adolescents does ours.
4- Check out Always (the pads). They have videos for that age group that dicuss puberty and (briefly) sexuality. It also comes with huge boxes for boys and girls with supplies for each (deo, pads). They even have a spanish version. Must start with something like this so they understand what their body is doing before they start learning about sex, STD's and pregnancy.

I don't have any advice for you, just wanted to tell you that I'm in the same boat. (and about to go over the waterfall on Thrusday). I'm not ashamed to admit that I am SCARED of 4th grade girls.

Good luck!

Have you watched the videos? If not, do so! Write down some questions you anticipate them asking. A lot of what we got was "Why do I have to get a period?" "Does it hurt"
THe kids were painfully shy until one girl got the nerve to ask a question, and then all heck broke loose. We explained they got periods so one day they could have a baby (once they were married ) but that didn't mean they were ready to have a baby now. Luckily, most of them gave us the "EW BOYS" look when we said that. LOL

Do they have any knowledge basis so far? I think we start sex ed. here in 5th grade, so it's all new then.

Funny joke. A teacher who usually teaches first grade went to a baseball came with the 4th grade team. The boys kept throwing the baseballs. She yells at them and says " put your balls back in you pants" ( meaning to put them in your pocket), and all the kids start snickering. Then she later realized that she wasn't with 1st graders anymore she was with 4th grade !

Hope this works-- I attached a little blurb on some good resources I've found.
The Learn to be Healthy site is really cool-- sign up is free and the resources are interactive-- you could do the activities online on a projection screen/ SmartBoard.
We had a 4th grade Mom/Daughter night last week. Be Prepared for those 4th graders' questions: "What if I get my period and I have a male teacher?" "What if I get my period and I'm at the top of a ferris wheel and it is stopped?" (real question-- I can't make that stuff up!!) "What's inside boobs?" Hygiene is a HOT topic-- I got really nice samples of Always pads and Secret deodorant from the Proctor/Gamble site (though a little late for this year.)
Have fun with it!!

My son is in fourth grade and it gives me the heebie-jeebies to hear you talking about sex ed at that age! I realize that it needs to happen earlier now than when I was growing up, but he's still my baby!

They're at the point in science class now where they're starting to explain about sex cells without going into the mechanics...maybe talking to one of the teachers about what they've covered in the science curriculum could help you out.

Funny story about my ten year old....

We were in the car in traffic talking about all kinds of crazy stuff, so my mind was not entirely on the conversation. He asked me if cockroaches had penises, and I said "Well, maybe, I don't know how they'd fertilize the eggs if they didn't, we'll have to look it up." His horrified response: "Cockroach pee fertilizes eggs?!?!" My flustered response: "Um, stuff other than pee comes out of penises...within a few years, it'll start happening to you at night, if we haven't talked about it again by then, come to me when it happens and I'll explain more about it."

I'm not particularly squeemish about explaining the anatomy thing...he was eight when his baby brother was born, and when he was having a hard time grasping the fact that girls have multiple openings "down there", I took him to a OB appointment with me and she was gracious enough to spend a few minutes showing him the flipbook with anatomy drawings in it and about how the eggs come out of the ovaries, all the way to the birth process...and we had already covered that cells from the dad meet up with the egg in the woman to create the baby...we're just not to the mechanics of it yet.

Lordy, I'm getting old....it's all right around the corner and I'm nowhere near ready for it yet!