Classroom Lesson Ideas
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A new school year is exciting and a teacher can feel nervous. 2020 brought a whole new level of nervousness for teachers! I don’t get really nervous, but this 2020 year is like nothing before.
My class would not get to see my smile, I’d have more difficulty teaching phonemic awareness, and I’d have 5 year olds in masks. What is there to worry about??!! 😂
But really that was a just a portion of my nerves! I was so unsure about what kids understood concerning why they had to be uncomfortable in a mask for three hours (half day kindergarten). Did they understand why there were certain things that we could not do? 😢 Granted, they didn’t know all the awesome stuff we played and experienced in kindergarten, so I was probably more nervous about me not giving the normal experience.
How would I successfully help a group of 5 year olds understand what was happening in the world in a kid friendly and not scary way?
Well I found a way!! 🙌🏼
I always do! 😉🥰
I actually spent two days using Fight the Germs in class but I could’ve combined it into one day. However I wanted to talk about the book twice so it worked out really well! ❤️
As usual, I did the basic title, author and illustrator point outs. I explain to them that it’s going to be a fictional story but that it’s realistic fiction! Even though they are five years old, if they are hearing the word “fiction” they will soon learn that it is make-believe. 😉 Never too young to learn big words. 😀
I also explain to them that good readers will connect to the book! One of the ways to connect is to connect to yourself while reading the story. What in the story have you experienced? How was your experience similar or different to the story? Have you felt the same as the character?
It is a reading skill called “Text to self!”
I then explain to my students that they are going to be listening in the story to hear how they can connect it to their own life!
The story starts out with some cute neighbor friends waking up one morning and wishing one of the girls a happy birthday then she says that she cannot invite them to their birthday party because they have a lockdown in town!
This is where I pull out MY QUESTION MARK HEADBAND! I place it on my head and say, “I have a question! Good readers ask questions! My question is, What is a lockdown?? The book says there was a “lockdown in town.” Can anyone help clarify if they know what a lockdown is?”
Holding up my clarifying glasses, I choose a student to explain to me what a lockdown is. I thank the student for CLARIFYING for me about what a lockdown is and of course repeat what a lockdown is. 🥰
I asked the students if they had any experience with a lockdown before. This is wherever several hands shot up, and I let them share about their experiences!
After each student I thank them for making a text to self connection and sharing it with the class! 🥰 USING THE VOCABULARY OVER AND OVER AGAIN WILL HELP THEM LEARN IT.
Of course as we shared the glasses, we made sure to clean and sanitize hands and glasses between students. 😉
My favorite books give me the opportunity to teach reading strategies even to 5 year olds!”
– You Can Call Me Jess
I finish the story with clarifying and doing more connections to self till the end. They are getting a lot of good text to self connection and sharing their experiences!
I even asked them if they knew someone who had a birthday during Covid. We talked about how that could be hard!
We came back the next day ready to summarize the story and add onto our lesson using the Fight the Germs book.
Since we made so many text to self connections, the class did a fantastic job retelling the story! 🙌🏼 I really feel this book set my students up an extra step in their progression of learning “text to… connections.” ❤️ We could have also done text to world very easily, but I teach half day and didn’t take the time this year with also having one less day a week. Next year though! 😉
After retelling the story, I turned to this page!
“Do you remember what these purple funny things are?” Surprisingly, at least one person will remember germs! 🙌🏼
I review with them that germs go everywhere and especially in our eyes and mouth and that is why WE are currently wearing a mask.”
Next I explained to them that I’m going to put a dot onto their hand with a marker. I do not support drying on the body and I am sure to clarify that with my students at this is for a lessonI do not support drying on the body and I am sure to clarify that with my students at this is for a lesson and that is the only reason why I am marking their body.
I explain to the students that this dot is going to represent a virus or sick germ. We’re going to pay attention to where those germs go throughout the day!!
We continued throughout the day and sporadically I would kind of freak out and be like “Oh my goodness, did our hands just touch that!!”😱 I would rush around the room and give everyone a squirt of hand sanitizer! 😂
After recess, we looked at our hands and were reminded that we have germs on our hands and we just put those germs on the playground. That means they also got other people’s germs on their hands. 😱 Hand sanitizer again!
We talked about the importance of not touching your face because we’re not just putting our germs on things but instead of putting other people germs into our bodies and that is how we get sick! 😒 so many great lessons spawned from Fight the Germs! 🙌🏼🙌🏼
At the end of the day, we reviewed what the book taught us about how to fight germs. The kindergarteners did a wonderful job remembering how the kids in the story washed their hands with soap and water while singing the Happy Birthday Song.
Although we had used hand sanitizer all day to kill our germs, it is super important to use soap and water whenever we can! I challenged them all to wash their hands and get that dot off their hand! 👍🏼 For the next 10 minutes, students took turns scrubbing and singing Happy Birthday in the restrooms. 🎶
I learned a lesson for my first time trying this activity! Don’t put such a big dot. 😉
Some students scrubbed it all the way off and some I just said, “That’s ok, keep scrubbing it at home!”
Fight the Germs will continue to be used in my classroom. In two years, my kindergarteners won’t remember much or be able to connect text to self because they were too young during this pandemic, but it has created the very best lesson about germs (regardless of a pandemic).
This is a fantastic book for students of any age! Order one on Amazon!!
I have a review of Fight the Germs on this post! It shares about the book as well as how I used it as a keepsake for 2020 for my family. If you’re interested in purchasing this book for your classroom, click here.
