Confession: The Hygiene Award is not exactly one of my favorite awards to teach. And, that’s putting it politely. Suggesting that kids aren’t bathing enough or that their parents aren’t doing an awesome job teaching them these life skills is awkward at the best of times. Add in a bunch of opposing viewpoints on some of the “rules” of basic hygiene, and I just want to forget this award exists. But, it is a required award for Helping Hands. And everyone needs a reminder once in awhile that proper handwashing takes more than five seconds.
If you love teaching this award and have all sorts of fun ways of teaching it, this post is probably not for you (I’d love to hear how you teach it in the comments though!). But, if you need some ideas to make this potentially awkward topic easy breezy, read on!
The last time I taught this award, I had kids who did great with worksheets. We used the helping hand workbook and flew through the award. I added in an activity about handwashing and we finished in one meeting. We put glitter on some hands to show how germs transfer to different people and surfaces. I love this idea so much. (Probably because glitter spreads like germs!) Unfortunately, every time I’ve attempted this experiment, I get more glitter on the floor than spreading between hands..
Gamify Everything! Or at Least the Hygiene Award..
My adventurers this year are not into worksheets and writing. With my goal of gamifying the adventurer curriculum as much as possible, I turned the award into a board game! To complete the award, we played the game, watched two YouTube videos on hygiene and dental care, and practiced brushing and flossing at home.
All of the discussion questions and bible verses needed to complete the award are included as part of the game. We had two helping hands and two staff members at our meeting this week. With this size group, we went around the board twice. With a larger class, once around would likely be nice length of time to play and would get you through most of the cards. We still had a few cards left at the end of our game, and I read the last few factoids when we finished.
There are three types of cards – question/trivia, bible verses to look up (three), and share a factoid cards. Most of the factoids are from the Helping Hands manual with a few added from Google. Many of the trivia questions include the answer on the card. (Printed upside down in mouse print.) Yes, I did have one kid who would immediately flip the card over and try to read the answer before thinking about it himself. He thought he was very clever! And I thought about how much I love it when the kids think they are outsmarting me and are actually learning all the material I’m trying to teach them!
Bring in “Guest Teachers” (thanks YouTube)
Before we started the game, we watched two YouTube videos. Scishow explained why brushing our teeth is so important and what happens when we do (and also when we don’t). I loved how well she explained the science. The kids enjoyed this video as well.
The second video by Smile and Learn covered all sorts of hygiene – handwashing, how to brush your teeth, how to shower, and even wearing clean clothes! Really, it was fairly thorough. However, although I appreciated how thorough it was, my adventurers weren’t impressed. I’m not sure what they hated. Maybe they felt talked down to? I’m not sure. I’ve included the link – maybe your adventurers will like it more than mine did. But, I’ll look for a new video before I teach this class again in a few years.
Dental Care
I created a dental care sticker chart for the kids to practice their daily brushing and flossing. I included 14 days with the intention of expecting them to complete seven days of actually brushing twice a day and flossing daily, but later realized how ideal fourteen days actually is – after all, it takes about two weeks to start a new habit! For those of you who enjoy printing and cutting your own stickers, I have cut file to share. The boxes for the sticker chart are also the right size for tiny stickers such as these. Or the kids could just check off the boxes with a pencil.
How do you teach the hygiene award? Do you enjoy adding in games to teach awards? Let me know in the comments!