January 19, 2009

Today I took the four little kids with me to the Oasis as today is the first day of the summer program at the Oasis. I ended up teaching three classes in the homework club on health. I taught them first just the basic overview of holistic health care before starting in with them about personal hygiene and germs. We learned about germs and how they are microscopic that we can't see with the naked eye but need a microscope to see them. I used a spray bottle filled with water to represent our germs. I sprayed it onto their hands and then they touched an object to see where the water went. Then I used the spray bottle and pretended to cough and sneeze so that they could see the midst of water in the air which represents our germs if we do not cover our mouth and nose. The kids I believe understood or at least had fun laughing at me and wanting my "germs" (water) to touch their faces.

I also did another experiment with them using oil to represent the oil in our skin and nutmeg which represents our germs to see how well they can wash their hands. They did good for the most part except for getting all the oil off which was hard since we actually did not have any soap to use. Afterwards I had the kids do a small dot-to-dot coloring paper which said that I pledge to was my hands. I guess we will see what exactly they will learn next week when I ask them about their germs and washing their hands.