Did your child come home tonight and tell you they had germs? More specifically, did they tell you they were covered in Mrs. Bowden's cooties? If so, they weren't far off the mark. For children germs are invisible things that cause them to get sick. Remembering to do things like washing their hands or covering a cough may not come easily. With the sneezing and sniffles that seem rampant in our classroom throughout the year, using a visual tool that demonstrates how germs spread and the effectiveness of different hand washing and cleaning methods early in the year seemed like a smart idea. Enter the Glo Germ Classroom Kit! This morning I applied the 'fake germ' powder, which is difficult to see, from the kit to my hands without telling Team Awesome. I followed our normal routine, handled the usual things in the classroom (including hugging the children), and then we used the black light, which causes the powder to glow, to track where the 'germs' had dispersed. We were amazed at how many things we touch in our classroom and how far the germs had spread! A few children even had some in their hair. I then washed my hands and we looked at them under the black light again. Unfortunately, I did not wash my hands well enough to get rid of most of the germs and they were still visible. So we watched a video on how to wash our hands properly and another one on how germs are spread through sneezing. Although we will need to revisit hand washing often, I know Team Awesome now has a better understanding of how illnesses are spread.
