Need some Ideas

Just recently did this as part of nursing school. Some made posters with pictures of germs. Don't underestimate these children, they were smart. We taught them to cough or sneeze in the bend of their arm instead of their hands. We also found a skit to do off the internet. We also took a bottle of the foam soap and paper towels to show them how to wash their hands and to sing Happy Birthday twice and that was how long they should wash. It was more fun than I thought it would be. We taught a kindergarden class.

There is a coloring page with a pledge on it to wash their hands.

We did this too when I was in nursing school.

Hands on is the best approach with kids. Our school had a special kind of germ powder that stayed on your hands (i beleive after you washed) and you could then look at it under a black light to see all the 'germies' left behind.

They loved this!

Good Luck :)

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To the world you may just be one person; to one person, you may just be the world"

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I did this last quarter with a group of children at a daycare (they were 4 and 5, I think). We did it in 3 groups, the first group played with some toys with 'germs' on their hands (the germs were big pieces of glitter). The glitter transfered from their hands to the toys, and they saw how germs are transmitted to everything you touch. The next station was the handwashing station. We had them wash their hands and sing a song (I think it was happy birthday, or twinkle twinkle, or the abc's, i don't remember for sure). The last station we had a cut out head (one of those cute paper plates) with a spray bottle with yellow glitter paint in it. The head "sneezed" (spray the glitter paint) onto a piece of posterboard, and the kids saw how germs are spread when you sneeze. They did it again, only this time using a tissue to block the glitter paint, and saw how tissues help to stop the spread of germs.

The kids all really liked our presentation, and it only took about 15-20 minutes to do, long enough to get our point across but not too long that we lost their attention. Good luck with your project!

Thanks for the ideas guys! They are going to be a really good help! I thought about the glitter thing, but I have to check with the schools before we go in and make a mess... I've tried to find pictures for them to color to make a coloring book but I'm not having to much luck. I just found out that the local Wal Mart donated a bunch of those little travel sized hand sanitizers for our group to hand out. sounds like this could be fun !

To find coloring pages, try to going to a search engine and typing in "handwashing coloring pages", I'll bet you get a number of hits. I've done some community projects and needed coloring pages before and usually I've had a lot of success with this. Often you can find a selection of coloring pages that are designated to be reproduced and distributed without needing to secure permission. Good luck!

If you can get some petri dishes somewhere and can go to the classroom about a week or so before your presentation, pick 3 kids to come with youl.

Have one run their finger over a petri dish right away.

Have another go rinse their hands with water only and do the same.

Have the third wash their hands with soap and water and swab the last dish.

Put the dishes in a warm dark place for awhile and see what grows!

I did this in college as a project for kindergardeners and they LOVED it!