Sneeze safe

Teachers' zone

Lesson 1: Colds and cold germs

Learning objectives

Pupils should learn:

Curriculum focus

England

Early Years Foundation Stage 40–60+ months:

• Personal development: Self-care: dress and undress independently and manage their own personal hygiene.
• Physical development: Health and bodily awareness: recognise the importance of keeping healthy, and those things which contribute to this.

National Curriculum PSHE – 3. Developing a healthy, safer lifestyle:

• 3a How to make simple choices that improve health and wellbeing
• 3b How to maintain personal hygiene
• 3c How some diseases spread and can be controlled.

Wales

Early Years:

• Personal and social development: begin to take responsibility for personal hygiene

Key Stage 1 Personal and social education framework:

• Physical aspect: know that exercise and hygiene and the right types and amount of food are important to keep their bodies healthy

Scotland

Early Years:

• Knowledge and understanding of the world

5–14 Health Education:

• Physical Health Level A
  
• Social Health Level A

5–14 Environmental Studies:

• Science – Knowledge and understanding: living things and the processes of life Level A

Northern Ireland

Foundation stage:

• Personal Development and Mutual Understanding

Primary:

• Become aware of key issues which affect their physical, social and mental well-being and that of others
• Develop an awareness of their own personal safety

Republic of Ireland

The Sneezesafe* materials will support the Framework for Early Learning (launching in late spring 2008), Wellbeing theme.

Preparation

You will need to familiarise yourself with the website and set up Story 1 so that it is ready to show to the class. It will also be useful to try out the first game, ‘Don’t catch a cold’, at both levels.

Vocabulary: cold, germ, tissue, microscope, sneeze.

Resources: a box of tissues and pocket-sized packets of tissues (request samples); materials for artwork such as paper, pencils and crayons. Sneezesafe* poster and certificates.

Differentiation: The activities are mainly for the whole class but the game ‘Don’t catch a cold’ has two levels to provide for different abilities.

Time: Approximately 40 minutes (20 minutes for the presentation, 10 minutes for the game and 10 minutes for follow-up activities).

Classroom activities and follow-up ideas

1) Introduce the topic by briefly asking the pupils if they know what a cold is and talking through the symptoms. Have they ever caught a cold or seen someone from their family suffering from a cold? Ask pupils how the cold made them feel. Explain that you are going to show the pupils a website/some stories which will help them learn about how we catch colds and how we can help stopping colds from spreading.

2) Show Story 1: Suki’s got a cold!
Here are some suggested questions which can be discussed during the presentation:

• Screen 3: Has anyone ever had cold? What is it like?
• Screen 6: Look at your hand. There are probably some germs on it right now. Can you see them?
• Screen 7: What does a microscope do?
• Screen 13: How else might cold germs get into your mouth?

Talk briefly about anything in the story which the class may not have understood fully. Emphasise that they should not be afraid of these germs as they can’t really hurt us, just give us colds that make us feel unwell and that we can pass on to other people.

3) After watching the story, younger pupils in particular will be ready for a practical activity. Singing the well-known song ‘Ring a ring o roses’ will energise everyone. If there is space, pupils can form a circle holding hands and can ‘all fall down’ on the last line. Discuss the song: what does ‘atishoo’ mean?

4) An alternative follow-up activity is for pupils to draw or paint a picture of a person with a cold or flu. The person should look sad and tired with a red nose and pale skin. They could be in bed too, and older pupils could add a speech bubble for the person to say how they feel.

5) To reinforce learning about colds and how they are caused by a virus, and to add some fun to the experience, the pupils can be shown the first online game, ‘Don’t catch a cold’. The teacher can show this to the whole class as a demonstration of how it works and let individual pupils take turns at working the mouse. Pupils can later try out the game in small supervised groups at a desktop machine. The game can be used to stimulate discussion around the following topics:

• Cold germs can’t really be ‘zapped’ so how can we stop them?
• How do cold germs get into the air?
• How do cold germs get onto surfaces and objects?
• If we have a cold, how can we keep cold germs off our hands?
• Can we really see germs? Why not?

6) Print and hand out the downloadable certificates