Hygiene is one of the earliest self-help skills children can develop. They can learn how to wash their hands at appropriate times - at first with assistance and later independently.
Coronavirus has increased the need for handwashing and hygiene in childcare centres. Children may be extra-knowledgeable about illness and germs because of the pandemic.
Handwashing, showering and having a bath can be ridiculously fun in the early years. Early childhood educators will know how much enjoyment toddlers and preschool children can have from a child-sized bathroom sink. Hygiene can turn into a sensory experience, waterplay and socialising.
NQS and EYLF
The National Quality Standard requires early childhood education services to promote and implement effective practices in illness and injury management and hygiene (2.1.2).
The Early Years Learning Framework asks children to take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical wellbeing (3.2).
Learning experiences
Experiment with bacteria on bread
- Take several pieces of bread.
- Using gloves, place one immediately in an airtight zip-lock bag. Write "untouched" on the bag using a permanent marker.
- The other pieces of bread can each touch something different (e.g. pass around a circle of children who have unwashed hands, the lunch table, the floor, the sandpit). Place these pieces in labelled zip-lock bags too.
- Keep the labelled bags on a shelf for a few weeks, and watch different amounts of mould grow in the bags. Note, this may take a while if the bread has a lot of preservatives.
- Remind children why they need to wash their hands!
Give toys a bath
Fill a baby bath or waterplay trough with water and bubble bath mixture. Provide children with wash cloths, bar soap, empty shampoo and conditioner bottles, and dry towels. Encourage them to bathe their dolls, plastic animals or other suitable toys.
Create signs for your bathroom
Provide children with a camera so they can take photos of the different steps involved in handwashing. They can then use these to create an instructional poster for their bathroom. Preschool children could even make a poster for younger age groups, to help them learn this important skill.
Sing handwashing songs
Children are often taught to sing Happy Birthday while they wash their hands, to ensure they spend long enough doing so.
Educators can adapt popular songs to include handwashing:
- "If you're happy and you know it, wash your hands."
- "This is the way we wash our hands, early in the morning"
There are handwashing songs for children on YouTube too:
- The Wiggles: Wash your hands (featuring sign language)
- The Singing Walrus: Wash your hands
Experiment with soap
- Use different types of soap to see which ones make the best bubbles.
- Use water to make bar soap soft. Can children squish it through their fingers and mould it into shapes?
- How do different soaps react with water?
- Can you paint with wet bars of soap or liquid soap on a window or perspex screen?
Discussions
- Why do we need to wash our hands and bodies?
- When should we wash our hands?
- What is the correct way to wash hands?
- How do our bodies fight illness?
- Can having showers and baths be fun?
Resources
Picture books
- Mr. Archimedes' Bath by Pamela Allen
- How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth by Michelle Robinson and Kate Hindle
Music
Sesame Street: Ernie and his rubber ducky
Websites
National Geographic: What is bacteria?