with Miss Emily’s Reception Class
Have you ever watched children washing their hands?
It’s usually a quick wet of the hands under running water and an even quicker shake of the hands and then off they go to keep playing with their friends!
With the current Coronavirus situation unfolding around the world and the changes to the children’s weekly routines, Miss Emily’s Receptions have been learning about germs. What they are, how we get them and how we can prevent ourselves from catching ‘bad’ germs.
We completed an investigation as a class using dish soap and glitter. Our class was separated into two groups and either red or silver glitter was put on the children’s hands. These became our ‘germs’. We then explored what would happen if we shook hands and played games. We noticed that our germs spread everywhere.
“Germs can get on your hands even when you can’t see them”
— Isa
“I liked that we could see our germs on our hands”
— Cassie
“When you touch someone, it (germs) can spread really fast”
— Josephine
“Germs can get on everyone”
— Oliver
We then brainstormed some ways which we can stop the germs from spreading. We talked about the ‘dab’ as a way of containing our coughs and sneezes. We also learnt how to correctly wash our hands. We learnt about how long we should (20 seconds), how much soap we should use and that singing the Happy Birthday song twice can help us to time how long we have taken.
We noticed that when others didn’t wash their hands for 20 seconds with soap, that their germs (glitter) was still on our hands. This showed us the importance of hand washing.
“You need to wash your hands”
— Jack
“Using hand sanitisers- you need to rub it between your fingers”
— Savannah
“We can stop spreading by washing our hands for 20 seconds”
— Elyse
“Sneezing- you have to dab sneeze”
— Dal
