Tot School-Hygiene

This week we'll be focusing on hygiene.  We're going to be talking about brushing our teeth, covering our mouth, taking baths and germs.  This theme is coming at a great time as Mara has been fighting us on just about all of those.

Monday we started with teeth.  I cut out a mouth for her and gave her 16 teeth to put in it as well as a tongue.  As we glued them in we talked about how she has upper teeth and lower teeth and how it is important that she brushes all of them (she only does her bottom at night).  After it dried we pretended to munch on her play food.

Then we talked about flossing.  We don't floss Mara's teeth but probably should.  For this I took one of her lego duplo blocks and put some play dough between the pegs.  I told her that the play dough was food that we get stuck in our teeth.  I gave her some yarn and showed her how to use it to get rid of the food.  She had a lot of trouble working the yarn but did a decent job after a few tries.  What I was really impressed with was that she kept at it.  With her attitude lately she hasn't been to keen on continuing to try.

On Tuesday we focused on covering her nose when she sneezes or coughs.  I talked with her about how when we do those two things germs go everywhere.  Then I took a windex bottle with a picture on it and demonstrated the concept.  She didn't want to spray the bottle herself but stayed with me in understanding the topic.

We then created an art project to demonstrate this too.  The night before I had cut out a silhouette of her head and glued it to another sheet of paper.  I first traced her hands and then let her color this face while I cut them out.  We then glued a tissue with her hands holding it up to the face's nose.  She really focused throughout this whole activity and showed me all the ways to cover her face: hands, elbow and tissue.  I was really impressed!

Wednesday was the beginning of the end of the week for us.  All we got done was a germ sensory bin.  I put cotton balls in a bin along with some spiky balls.  I told her the cotton balls were the white blood cells attacking the germs.  She took this literally and threw all the "germs" out of the box and at Buddy, our cat.

Thursday and Friday were kind of washed with any activities.  We kept busy with puzzles and our books for the weeks but I just didn't get my act together to prep anything.  I've found that if I don't prep the night before it doesn't happen.

Next week we're set to start dinosaurs.  I'm curious how much we'll get done as my mom and aunt are visiting.  I hope we can fit it all in along with some fun with them!