Hygiene Fun

Maintaining hygiene and cleanliness can often be difficult and time consuming especially while working and caring for your family. To help you out Children First have put together a few suggestions on ways to make keeping clean fun for all the family and a permanent change for the healthier at home and at childcare.

A Hand-y Solution

In the fight against infectious disease and coronavirus (COVID-19) hand washing with soap is everyone’s superhero.

When to wash?

Everyone should wash their hands:

• Before you eat and drink.
• After coughing or sneezing.
• Before entering and leaving childcare.
• Before touching yours or anyone else’s face.
• Before entering and after leaving any new area so that you don’t bring in or carry out any germs.
• After handling animals.

Hand sanitizer is a good alternative when you are out and about but always wash your hands when available.

How to wash?

1. Wet your hands under a cold or lukewarm tap.
2. Lather with soap and clean front, back and between fingers for 30 seconds.
3. Rinse.
4. Dry your hands. Wet hands spread germs more easily than dry ones so always remember to dry them!
5. Repeat every time you require.

Hand wash fun with kids!

To practice technique and help your family visualise the importance of handwashing, try drawing little germ monsters on different parts of your child’s hands and let them draw some on yours. Challenge each other to wash away the germs using the above hand washing steps and congratulate success. Once you have aced the practice, try without the drawn germs.

To help wash for the correct amount of time sing a song that runs for at least 30 seconds whilst washing your hands. This can also be a great way to practice ABCs and other educational songs. To help cultivate this good habit try singing the same song and doing the same hand washing actions every day for a week. When you and your family have the habit down try mixing it up by singing in an accent, funny or monster voice and other fun variations you can think of. Try whispering or slow singing of a hand-wash song before meals or bed to prepare the family for winding down.

Avoid touching your face

Another great way to reduce your risk of catching COVID-19 is by practicing to not touch your face. The average person touches their face two to five times every minute! Every time you touch your face you risk transferring germs from your hands to your mouth, nose and eyes and catching a disease. If you do need to touch your face or a family member’s face remember to wash your hands first!

Face Game

To help train you and your family to reduce touching your face make a game of it. Write everyone’s name on a board or sheet of paper. Every time someone touches their face have them place a sticker or line next to their name. At the end of the day check who has won by receiving the least stickers or lines. You can reward the winner and anyone who has improved by letting them choose music for dinnertime or hand wash time or in another way.

When you are not playing the game still encourage family members to kindly remind each other not to touch their face and thank them for looking out for each other.