We finished our Healthy Lifestyles unit. It includes nutrition, exercise and germs and cold prevention. Oh, and getting enough sleep. The last day of activities we did was learning about Germs and how we can keep our hands clean and using tissues when we cough so we don’t spread our germs around to others in the classroom. Here are some previous Nutrition activities we did.
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| Paper Bag Puppets for teaching about Germs, Colds and Flu Season and Staying Healthy! |
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| The Puppets had a “Ahh-Choo” poem attached and we sang songs to our puppets. |
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| Germ Buster Girl Puppets for teaching about Cold and flu prevention…. |
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| Boy Germ Buster Puppet for teaching about germs, and Cold and Flu prevention…. |
I read the kids 2 books; Germs Make Me Sick by Melvin Berger, and SHERM the Germ by Bobbi Katz.
Germs, Germs Germs, and Germs Make Me Sick are 2 really cute books. They are favorites of the kids too!
2care2teach has a cute poem. We usually use a poem with our art and find a familiar tune to sing it to (ABC song, Itsy Bitsy, Bingo, Jimmy Crack Corn etc.). Kidscoop had a really cute song to the tune of twinkle twinkle.
HERE at Livespeaklove I found a really cute ACHOO! BINGO game that has words that have to do with staying healthy (cover mouth, wash hands, sleep, exercise, healthy food etc.). I use this for a center game the week we study health.We made some paper bag puppets to go with out GERMS unit.
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| At First Grade Fever she had these cute tooth fairy puppets the kids made that gave me an idea for our puppets. I may do a cuter one next year. I have 30 students this year though so I’ll keep it simple for now. |
A freebie I found on Teachers Pay Teachers that had a cute apple experiment and some printable true/false quizzes is HERE at TPT. It’s made by Cindy First Grade A-Z. I printed up page 2 and 3 of this 4 page minibooklet on Germs HERE at TPT. It has a fun lotion and glitter experiment for kids to see how germs spread. Then they wrote about 5 ways they can keep germ free!
Have you tried Glo Germ with your students? It is kind of like that stuff you use to get from the dentist that you would chew and it would show you all the places you had missed when you brushed… Glo germ works the same way. I think mine cost about $8.00 for the size below on Amazon.
| I bought some of this glo germ in yellow for the black light experiment. It is fun and gets the message out how important it is to handwash and sneeze in our sleeve, not our hands, so we don’t spread sneeze or cold germs. But you could do the lotion and glitter experiment just as easily…. |
It sticks to germs and then they show up with a black light! It’s a great way to help kids understand how important it is to wash hands thoroughly to get rid of germs!
Shake hands with the first student and then the best demo is to have that student shake hands with a second and so on….the Glo Germ trace will usually go to 5 to 6 students.
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| You can get a small black light for less than $10.00 check it out HERE. |
I got a lot of free curriculum from PUFFS Tissues from Proctor and Gamble way back in the early days of my teaching career. But I couldn’t find a link anymore to the teachers free stuff. But I did find an old lesson plan that I got a few good ideas and websites from. The link is HERE. A fun “Germinator” online interactive game is Here.
We also talked about how exercise can keep you healthy during winter months and NOT to become an inside couch potato. We did dodge ball for P.E. then listened to our heart beats with real stethoscopes to see how much faster they were beating after we worked out. We talked about healthy eating and getting enough sleep last month too when we studied nutrition and wrote our Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly innovations. Link is HERE at Patties Classroom.
The kids wanted to listen to each other’s heartbeats too. I have 4 class stethoscopes so we got around to everybody by the end of P.E. Here were the cute puppets we made and added the Ahhh-Choo Poem to the fronts.
“SNEEZE IN YOUR SLEEVE or ON A TISSUE” PUPPETS…..
We sang the Soap and Water Song to my percussion instruments. Look in my STORE above and check out the xylophone packs. They are only $20.00 and the kids ADORE playing them to music. They are also really sturdy. I’ve purchased 3 for my class.
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| We read 2 Weekly Readers I had saved from Years ago…..back in the dinosaur age when I started teaching….snicker…. |
And we also read some fun books about keeping healthy. We are about done with our health unit!
This is a great book to read when you are done with your mini unit; HOW DO DINOSAURS GET WELL SOON! It is a really cute story the kids love it!
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| The Jane Yolen Dinosaur books are really funny and a quick read that kids LOVE! This one is about taking care of a cold. |
It is always a short but fun 2 day mini-unit during the winter months. Hope you all are staying healthy this sneeze and cough season! Don’t forget to drink lots of water and exercise too! Keep Well!