11 Sep How to Beat the Bugs with Proper Handwashing

Actually, we are not going back to school – we homeschool, but handwashing is just as important in the home as in school.  In fact, if it is not taught and enforced at home, you can be quite sure that it won’t be happening while at school.

This is our Yearly Refresher Course

About a year ago, I had done this exercise with Clark and Luci (read the the blog post here) to teach them how to beat the bugs with proper handwashing.  They had both really enjoyed it at the time and they still vividly remembered it.

I hadn’t planned on doing it, but Clark got it in his head that he wanted to do it again. I tend to agree that it is a great little experiment to do every so often to remind us all of the importance of handwashing.

Here’s the Process

This is what we do:  I cover their hands in Elmers white glue and have them slather it all over the front and back of their hands.  Then I generously sprinkle in some glitter to represent germs.  At Clark’s suggestion, this time we did two different colors so that we could see who was spreading the “germs.”   Luci chose green and Clark chose the red glitter.

Then we headed to the bathroom to wash it all off.

I’m not going to lie – it was HARD!  The glue hardened quickly. Despite some pretty serious scrubbing, Clark and Luci were having a really hard time getting all of the “germs” off.  I ended up having to help them scrub. In the end it was a great demonstration that germs don’t necessarily just wash off with a quick rinse under the water.  It is important to use soap and warm water to get every germ off your hands – and it takes warm water, soap and time!

The fun part about this experiment is that for a couple of days afterwards, we kept finding little pieces of glitter in the most unusual places – on Luci’s shoe, on a cup in the kitchen, in Clark’s hair…  so the lesson continued about how easily germs can be spread if we are not careful!

Try it with your kids!  It’s a great yearly reminder of the importance of thorough handwashing!  And it’s fun!