All About Handwashing and Germs

Today we had an amazing lesson about handwashing and germs! 
We had a special kit from our Health Region where we used Glo Gel, a black light, and Glo Germ Powder. 
I'm going to walk you through our eye-opening lesson today! 
1. We put the Glo Gel on our hands and rubbed it on our palms, tops of our hands, nails, thumbs and wrists. This was so we could see where we miss scrubbing when washing our hands. 

The students with the Glo Gel on their hands - ready to begin our lesson.

The students with the Glo Gel on their hands - ready to begin our lesson.

2. We went to wash our hands (like normal). 
3. We came back to our classroom, sat in a circle, turned off the lights and turned on the black light and looked at our hands. All the areas on our hands that were glowing were the places we missed washing. 
As a class, the places we missed washing most were:  - around the tops of our nails - under our nails - the tops of our hands - our wrists

Look at the glowing nails.

Look at the glowing hands. 

Look at the glowing hands. 

Look at the glowing hands. 

Look at the glowing hands AND nails. 

Look at the glowing nails and fingers. 

4. Then... we had a big chat about hand washing. We watched a video about hand washing and practiced where to scrub our hands! We HAVE to make sure we scrub ALL these areas:  - our palms - on our nails - under our nails - our wrists - our tops of our hands - between our fingers - our thumbs (nails and around the thumb) 

We talked about singing the alphabet or happy birthday once or twice while washing our hands. Also - singing it SLOWLY while we wash. 

Washing our hands the correct way. Look at all the soap!

Washing our hands the correct way. Look at all the soap!

Washing our hands the correct way. Look at all the soap!

Washing our hands the correct way. Look at all the soap!

Washing our hands the correct way. Look at all the soap!

Clean hands! Yay!

5. Then we came back to the room and shone the black light on our hands again. The results were much better than our first hand wash! Now that we know how to wash our hands, we have to make sure we wash them like that ALL the time to make sure we get all of the germs off. 

Clean hands!

Almost clean hands - still missing germs on the nails. 

Clean hands!

Clean hands - still missing some germs on the hands and nails. 

Clean hands!

Clean hands!

Clean hands!

And of course to finish our lesson we had to cut and glue the correct steps for how to wash our hands. Tomorrow we are going to colour our steps. 



Then we did a different experiment... 
Next, we had a little lesson about washing countertops or tables. This was very eye-opening to me the first time I did this experiment. Now when I do dishes, I wash the countertop at least 3-4 times to ensure no germs are being spread around! 
1. We put the Glo Germ Powder on the table and spread it around. 

2. Next, we had 1 student wash the table the cleanest they could. 

3. We turned the lights off and shone the black light on to see how well we cleaned the table....... AH!!! We were shocked! Look how dirty the table was! These are germs that we spread around and can't always see! 

Look at all the germs spread out on the table! Gross! We can only see this using the black light. 

Look at all the germs spread out on the table! Gross! We can only see this using the black light.

Look at all the germs spread out on the table! Gross! We can only see this using the black light.

Look at all the germs spread out on the table! Gross! We can only see this using the black light.

Look at all the germs spread out on the table! Gross! We can only see this using the black light.

4. Then, we washed the table 3 more times and it got cleaner, but it still wasn't perfect, so we used Lysol wipes to show how well they get rid of germs. We had to use about 2-3 wipes per table to effectively get rid of all the germs! 

Look how clean our table is after washing it 3-4 times with a wash cloth AND using 2-3 lysol wipes!

Look how clean our table is after washing it 3-4 times with a wash cloth AND using 2-3 lysol wipes!

Look how clean our table is after washing it 3-4 times with a wash cloth AND using 2-3 lysol wipes!

Keep this in mind next time you are washing your counter or table!