My very best wishes to you for a good green healthy positive and inspiring new school year! What better way to start the year than a good hand washing lesson and check!

GERMBUSTERS

Tiny living things called bacteria and viruses are found everywhere. . . in the soil, water, and air, and on almost everything.. They are so small that we cannot see them except through a microscope. Some are good and some are bad for us. They have different shapes like balls, rods, and spirals. Draw circles, spirals, and rods on a board for young students. Viruses are even smaller than bacteria. There are many ways to get germs that can make us very sick.

Ways that germs spread:

Drinking after someone
Breathing the air of someone sick.
From someone coughing germs into the air
Handling things that are dirty (discuss the many things we do with our hands)
Not washing our hands and putting them in our mouths.
Food that is contaminated or spoiled
Not washing hands after we use the bathroom
Not cleaning our skin if it is cut or bitten or scratched
Bacteria multiply fast and give off poisonous wastes. Viruses force their way into body cells and multiply until the cells burst open. WBC’s and antibodies are proteins in our blood that attack germs. Ask students if they remember ever being sick. Some germs are very dangerous such as measles and chicken pox and we go to a doctor and get a vaccination so we won’t get them. I use a little thermometer and a toy syringe for a shot. Act out the signs of having a germ: fever, chills, ache, vomit, rash on skin, cough.

Examples of germs in the body include the germs of a cold, flu, measles, mumps, and chicken pox, food poisoning, West Nile virus, and swine flu. One should rest, drink plenty of water and go to the doctor if you don’t start to get better. If they have a cut or scrape in their skin they should wash it, apply an antibacterial medicine and cover it with a bandaid depending on how bad or deep it is.

What was the first thing you did when you came into this world? BREATHE. You must have air to be alive. Can you see air? You feel air when you blow on your hand but you can’t see air. Air is INVISIBLE.
Has anybody seen a germ? Like the air, germs are INVISIBLE. Say that word. Invisible means we cannot see them. I usually start out with the little air fist and they can’t see air but can feel it and see it in action. Germs are invisible like the air and they are everywhere! Let them name some of the many things they do with their hands. They have many opportunities to gather germs! The best thing they can do to keep from getting germs that make them sick is to wash their hands.
Act out being sick: “Oh, I’ve got a headache, my throat hurts, my stomach hurts, I’ve got diarrhea, I feel like I might vomit.” I check my body temperature to make sure my body isn’t getting warmer. (Your body gets warmer and you get chills when you have a fever.) If I get worse I might need to go to the doctor. He may check my blood to see if the white blood cell count is high. White blood cells multiply to fight the germs. The doctor may prescribe medicine or give you a shot if you are sick. Sometimes I let them hold a thermometer to see how the body heat will make the thermometer rise.

Have a bowl of water, soap and towel ready and give them a lesson on how to wash their hands, making sure to get the front and back of the hands and in between their fingers. Make sure they rub their hands to make bubbles. It’s the bubbles that carry away the germs when you rinse them. I show them a hand brush and talk about how germs get under your fingernails sometimes and you need a brush to clean them.

I have noticed that many young children simply dab a drop of soap on their hands wash it off right away, grab a towel, wad it up in a ball, and throw it in the trash and their hands are still wet! Dampness attracts germs so I check to see how they dried their hands.

Glitterbug Potion is a hand lotion that is fluorescent. 8 ounces is a lot of lotion. I rub it over my hands pretending that it is germs and then I go around the circle and shake hands with each of them. They look at their hands under a blue light to see the germs and then go and wash them and then look again to see if they got the germs off. The fluorescence will remain where they did not wash. They carry a small inexpensive glow bar UVA light to check their hands and if they did a poor job, I go over how to wash them and we wash them together. They have a great inexpensive hand brush and it would make a great bonus gift for good washing.

Spend at least a week with young children giving attention to hand washing. Let them draw pictures of germs and tell stories about when they were injured or sick (Give them a chance to practice talking.) Teach children to listen and share through their stories. They love to talk and tell them.

 NOSES

Our nose is part of the respiratory system in our body. There are different kinds of respiratory systems in different kinds of life such as in a person (lungs), a fish (gills), a plant (stoma) or an amoeba (cell wall). There are many different shapes of noses located in different places on a body with different abilities to smell.
Our nose allows us to breathe air, it aids in digestion, speaking and smelling. The organs of smell are the nasal cavity, sinuses, hard palate, soft palate, epiglottis and the windpipe (trachea). Our nose is our first air filter and moistens and warms the air. The nasal cavity is a good humidifier and gets moisture from mucus, tear ducts, and sinuses. The blood in the membrane of the nasal cavity warms the air. The hairs and bony ridges trap the largest particles.
The epiglottis is protection for the respiratory system and is a trap door at the root of the tongue that closes over the trachea and keeps us from choking or breathing in food. The soft palate closes off the nasal cavity.
There are mucus glands in the wall of air passages and cilia that trap dirt and try to move it out (1 inch a minute) – as mucus making buggers. HAIRS grow in the nose and help filter dust from getting in lungs. The bronchial tree has mucus membranes that produce sticky mucus that traps smaller particles. Tiny cilia sweep the mucus to the mouth and nose to be swallowed, coughed up, or blown or sneezed out.

SMELL

Smelling is one of our five senses. How does smell affect us? A pizza smell can make your mouth water and start digestive juices, or smoke can warn us of a fire or something rotten we shouldn’t eat. Sense organs contain double-ended receptor cells. The receptor cells in the nose collect information and send electrical signals to the brain where they are converted to information and knowledge. Smell comes from the chemical particles in the air. Some animals and Insects can smell for miles. People have a very poor sense of smell.

What makes up our nose? 2 Nostrils separated by septum of cartilage, mucus glands and cilia (hairs). There is a postage stamp size area of receptor cells in roof of the nose that sends signals from olfactory rods in the mucus to olfactory BULB and to brain. For us to smell something, a signal from a receptor cells in the nose travels to the olfactory rods of mucus to the olfactory bulb (above the roof of the nasal cavity) and is sent to the brain – the cerebral cortex for perception.

Odors stimulate the brain to respond automatically affecting other systems. Food odor stimulates appetite / saliva. Disagreeable odors may produce gagging and vomiting. Our sense of smell helps taste buds to warn you of spoiled food. If you want to identify how something smells you give it a little sniff.

Do you have a NOSE? How many? We have one nose and 2 NOSTRILS or NARES. Do you have a snout? What has a snout, a muzzle, a trunk, gills, or blowhole? Let children answer and show them some pictures or toy examples of animals with different noses. Remind them that plants breathe air too! You can show them the picture of the stoma on the underside of a leaf.
What do noses do? Where are noses located?
1. They are a PASSAGE for air. We breathe 15 times a minute. Our body loses heat and water with each breath. We see the moisture in our breath when the air outside is cold.
2. MOISTENS the air
3. FILTERS the air
4. SMELLS the air. Smells come from chemical particles in the air. Some animals and insects can smell for miles. Ex. Dogs

The Nasal Cavity amplifies sound along with the throat, mouth, and sinuses. Noses of some animals push, pull, lift, reach and root for food.
ANOSMIA is odor blindness.

Objectives: Children will know that animals have different kinds of noses for breathing and some of them use them for other things too.
Children will know that plants also breath air through stoma in the leaves
Children will know some of the ways our nose helps us.
Children know that a signal is sent from the nose to the brain for identification.
Model of the nose

Materials: Models of animals with different noses.
ex. Bird, elephant, anteater, pig, fish, whale, camel, seal.
Picture of stoma in leaf
Chart showing nose and respiratory system
Make some smelling bottles with cotton balls and oils or powders or plants like lemon, mint, chocolat, vanilla, lavender etc.
(Remember scratch and sniff books!)

NOBODY CHOSE HIS NOSE
EACH IS DIFFERENT AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE
BUT WHATEVER THE CASE, IT’S THERE ON THE FACE,
AND NOW YOU KNOW ALL THE NOSE KNOWS!
Take a look at the noses of a few other animals!

Let’s begin with skin that wraps you up and keeps you in,
From the top of your head to the soles of your feet,
It helps keep out cold and helps hold in heat.
It’s a colorful covering germs can’t get through,
Skin protects the inside of you.
Because we have skin we can touch and feel
Things in the world around us!

Our skin is our largest organ and allows us to feel things. It protects our body and is different colors from pale white, to red, yellow, olive, brown and dark ebony. The color of skin is controlled by melanin. The darker the skin – the more melanin is in the cells. Melanin protects skin from sunburn. Some people have freckled skin and some people have no melanin at all and are very white and this is called albino. You can also have special birthmarks or moles on your skin.
Our skin is alive! Blood feeds the skin the oxygen and nutrition that it needs to stay alive through tiny blood vessels. In a lifetime we shed about 45 pounds of skin

LAYERS OF THE SKIN:

EPIDERMIS The skin you see. Your epidermis is always showing! New cells are always forming underneath. You could have a new epidermis in 2 weeks to 2 months. What you see are dead skin cells that flake off.
How the outside epidermis layer helps us:
1. Our first defense against bacteria.
2. Keeps moisture in our body
3. Holds the body together

DERMIS The dermis is thicker than the epidermis and includes the sebaceous or sweat glands that make sebum (the skin’s natural oil that makes skin waterproof!), oil glands, nerve endings, heat, cold, and pressure sensing cells. There is a fat layer that acts as a shock absorber, insulation, and stores energy from food. Hair grows from a follicle canal and oil is produced to keep it soft and flexible.

Blood vessels and fat help control the body’s temperature. We get flushed or red faced when hot and we start to sweat. When we sweat, we cool off and get rid of waste. When we are cold the blood vessels contract and we may get “goose bumps” or when the blood vessels narrow it may make us shiver. You may get rosy cheeks when it’s very cold because blood goes to surface to keep warm

SKIN SAFETY:
The sun can burn skin so we should use sunscreen if we are in the sun a long time.
98.6 is our normal body temperature. Be good to your skin and it will stick close to you! Skin loves to be scrubbed. Always wash cuts and scrapes and dress them if needed. If a cut is deep you may need it sewn up. You may need to get a tetanus shot if you get cut by something that is rusty.
The thickness of skin varies from location to location on an organism. In humans, the skin located under the eyes and around the eyelids is the thinnest skin in the body and is one of the first areas to show signs of aging. The skin on the palms and the soles of the feet is 4 mm thick and the thickest skin in the body. Our fingerprints are individual and all different and used to identify people.
Our skin uses the sun to make vitamin D to help our body build strong bones and teeth.
The skin of our head (our scalp) has about 5 million hair follicles. Hair is made of keratin from protein and our fingernails and toenails are keratin.
Children are usually frightened when they see blood and they need to know that it is OK and that it has cells that fight germs and infections so when the skin is scratched or injured it will bleed some so that germs won’t enter the body. Then white cells in the blood gobble up germs they find and the blood clots forming a scab that gets hard as the skin heals and it falls off. If they understand the role blood plays they will lose their fear.
If you want to let them practice storytelling, let some of them tell about a time when they were hurt.
Many illness and allergies can affect the skin. Some plants like poison ivy can cause rashes and some illnesses like chicken pox can make sores on the skin. I was working in the garden and the sap of the century plant burned my skin. Be cautious and take care of your skin. If you fall or something hits your body you may get a bruise. The area may turn blue from broken vessels that will eventually heal.

Again . . . What does skin do for us?
1. Keeps germs out.
2. Keeps water in.
3. Helps hold the body together.
4. Grows hair.
5. Sweats and cools us off.
6. Makes vitamin D to feed bones and teeth
7. Oils the skin and makes it waterproof.
8. Stores energy.
9. Helps keep us warm.
10. It allows us the important sense of touch that we can feel things like textures and temperatures through our skin

ACTIVITIES:
Let children compare their skin colors.
They can see blood vessels in skin and hair growing from it.
Fur is dense hair and augments the insulation skin provides and may serve as camouflage. On some animals, the skin is very hard and thick, and can be processed to create leather. Reptiles and fish have hard protective scales on their skin for protection, and birds have hard feathers, all made of tough β-keratins. Amphibian skin is not a strong barrier to passage of chemicals and is often subject to osmosis. Have samples of other kinds of skin coverings like, fur, feathers, scales, snakeskin, or toy examples of animals with different coverings like, fur, needles, scales, feathers, or exoskeleton chitonous outside coverings like bugs have.
I have a little feely bag and the kids take turns trying to guess what they feel in the bag without looking. Young children love to do this. You can also create a texture box from fabrics or see if certain colors make them feel warm or cold.