Staying clean and safe

This week we learned about how to stay clean and safe not only at school but at home and in our community.  This topic will come up again next semester but we worked this week to introduce the importance of washing our hands and the basic concepts of fire safety.

Not only did we practice washing our toys with soapy water,  we talked about germs as we taught the children about the power of soap and how it scares germs away. This science experiment works with just some water, pepper and a little bit of soap.  Ask your preschooler how to do this at home this weekend to have them show you how the germs run away on the surface of the water when you touch the surface with a soapy finger.

We talked about the spreading of germs and then spread some paint of our own by blowing through straws to move water colors across the tables.

We talked a lot about oral hygiene and brushing teeth but we also learned about flossing and flossed clay out of our Legos to learn how to use yarn to flick the plaque out of the spaces between the Lego teeth.  

We have been reviewing the message of brushing teeth twice a day and hope that through our support you will have more success in the future with reminding your preschooler about oral hygiene and how to brush effectively and keep their mouths clean.

We used tooth brushes a lot this week to scrub, write, draw and paint with.  One of our favorite materials this week was shaving cream.  If you are ever looking to clean your table at home you will love using shaving cream, it will get any surface nice and clean while being messy all at the same time.

The reason we worked so much this week on hand washing and germs, brushing teeth and taking baths was to get us ready for the change of season that brings us colds in the classroom and in our families.  We try to set the bar with these topics early to ensure children understand why we have them wash their hands or use 'magic soap' which is hand sanitizer.

In school we talk about and demonstrate how to use a tissue instead of a finger in the nose and to cough into their elbow instead of their hands or out in the open. 

Some of the games we played about teeth this week were related to math by rolling a dice and reading the dots to know the amount they represented it.  We worked to fill a mouth with cotton ball teeth in order to 'win' the game.  The children who are nearing age 5 and age 5 love these types of organized games.  If you have a dice and cotton balls or marshmallows you might want to try this game at home.

Besides the game we played making mouths this week worked for us as an art project as well and the kids often giggled at the varying sizes used throughout the week to create mouths of baby teeth and others of baby teeth and big kid teeth.  

However the kids were very eager to view germs placed on their hands with a special solution that could only be seen in black light.  They washed and washed their hands before we checked them under the light again to see if they got the germs to go away! This is always a fun game and science lesson all at the same time. 

Making germs this week was a way to offer up a great discussion of where we see germs and how we can pass them on to each other and also how we can make them go away.  We are hoping all these great lessons will help not only keep our program cleaner and healthier but your own homes as well.

Working on hygiene a lot left us a little bit more room to learn a few safety tips until we can cover safety in more detail later in the year.  We talked about examples of emergencies and then practiced calling 911 and what to say before we then became the fire fighters who took care of coming to the rescue to put out the fire.

We made smiles and other shapes with beads and strings to then move from dramatic play and large motor activities into a small motor one then worked to prepare writing skills by looking at maps and drawing the safety route for the ambulance, fire fighter, etc. to make it to their call.  

What's Coming Up?

• Don't forget this coming week is Homecoming Spirit Week so please remember to come dressed in flannel of some sort on Monday, 
• black and/or white on Wednesday and 
• red or anything Pirate or Palatine on Friday.
  
• We will be working on learning about farms and remember our field trip is next Friday to Arlington Crest Farms to learn about planting.  If you need another copy of the information about the trip please let Kris Stary or Emily Pilguy know ASAP.