Keeping our Bodies Strong and Healthy

This morning, we had a visitor come to our classroom.  Her name is Lynn Kokal.  She works for Children's Hospital in St. Paul and she came to help us learn about the four ways to keep our bodies strong and healthy.  Mrs. Kokal visits lots of school in the area teaching kids how to wash their hands properly and how to stay healthy, especially during the cold and flu season.

   

She started by reading us a story about germs.  She told us that germs are pretty much everywhere and that they can live for up to two hours on many surfaces.  She told us about the four ways to keep our bodies strong and healthy:

1.  Wash your hands.

2.  Vampire sneeze and cough.  (Be sure to have your kindergartner demonstrate this for you!)

3.  Don't share food or drinks.

4.  Get a flu shot.

   

Next, she gave each of us a little squirt of some pretend germs to rub on our hands.  Then we looked at our hands to see where the pretend germs were, using this cool black light that she brought along.

   

Then we headed out to the sink to practice washing our hands.  We got them wet and used two pumps of soap.  Then we sang the ABC Song in our thinking bubble while we washed the palms of our hands, the backs of our hands, our wrists, between each of our fingers and our finger nails.  We rinsed all the bubbles and germs down the drain and got a clean paper towel to dry them off.  

   

   

Then came the moment of truth…we had to put our hands under the black light again to see how we did.  We did a pretty good job, but we also learned that we could do even better washing our hands.

   

Mrs. Kokal reminded us of the ways to stay healthy and we promised her we would work really hard to wash our hands well and to stay as healthy as we can this winter.  She gave us each a really cool back pack with a book and some other important information inside for us to take home.

   

This program is provided through Children's Hospital and is funded by a grant for Infection Control and Prevention from Kohl's Department Stores.  Please join us in thanking Kohl's, Children's Hospital and our school nurse, Mrs. Hannasch, for this very valuable and healthy program.  We learned a lot!