All About Germs!

Teaching your students about germs is an absolute must with the little ones. Opening their eyes up to how easily germs are transferred can help in stopping those germs traveling around your classroom. There's really nothing like talking to one of your students when suddenly you feel the cool spray of a sneeze across your face. Not to mention, no teacher has any time to take days out of the classroom because of sickness. Teaching my students about hygiene and the spread of germs can also help in keeping them at school too. Having days off don't only affect us as teachers but it affects them too! Depending on the child, they can feel panicked when they have missed lessons and are having to play catch up.  

So, what does a fun and hands-on initial germ lesson look like? Well, here is one I did with a year 1 class a few years ago.

First, we brainstormed what we already knew about germs, I like to Think, Pair, Share for discussion time.  If you're unsure what that means, I give my students individual thinking time, they then turn to the person next to them and make a pair to discuss what they think and finally we share back to the class. I always find that this thinking strategy gives those students who may struggle an opportunity to get ideas from others and it sets them up for success. 

After brainstorming what we know, I like to give them a visual lesson about how easily germs can be transferred. I take my students outside with two different colours of glitter. In these photos, I used silver and gold. 

Here is my hand and my teaching partners hand. I like to do an example for the students so they can observe first. The students predict what they think will happen when we touch hands.

When it was the students turn, I let them dip one finger into the glitter. This saves us from a glitter bomb exploding everywhere and it still does the trick! Make sure you divide the students in half, give one half silver glitter and the other half gold. This is how they are going to see the germ transfer.

Get your students to go and find someone with the opposite coloured glitter. It's time to germ transfer!

After they have had a good play around with swapping germs. We went back into the classroom to discuss what happened and what we observed. Here was one beautiful child's response. 

There you have it! My initial hands-on lesson about germs. It's a fantastic way to jump into learning and the kids love it! Let me know in the comments if you gave it a go!