Health and Safety do not need to be taught to your individual children, rather, I believe they are best taught with a group of students if you are able to do so.  Since these subjects are key to preventing accidents and illness you can go through the topics altogether without repeating. This saves you time and frees you up to do other things.

Washing hands,  covering your mouth when sneezing or coughing, and throwing away tissues are topics that can easily be discussed concerning disease prevention. If you want to reinforce the concepts of stopping diseases from spreading, how about swabbing areas where germs grow? You and the children can make a list of best possible places to gather samples such as door handles, the toy box, toys, the kitchen table, the refrigerator handle and anywhere else you think there would be a colony of germs that your children touch. That’s really everything, isn’t it? lol  It is fascinating, memorable, and a bit scary to see what grows in a petri dish.  Amazon has bacteria science kits or you can purchase just the agar if you already have petri dishes. (Click on picture for link.)

Magic School Bus has several episodes on the human body and one in particular called Inside Ralphie that is about what happens to your body when you become ill. Click on the picture to see the 20 minute episode. 

Get out the crayons and markers for your children to create posters on preventing the spread of disease or staying healthy to display in your classroom or house.

Safety is a topic that is something you “teach” on a regular basis. Let me give you some examples:

Kitchen safety– don’t touch a hot stove; turn in the handles of your pots and pans; use oven mitts, clean up water from the floor to avoid falling, etc.

How about Food Safety? This website has lots of activities for different ages. You can talk about food and then put it into practice by making a batch of cookies. Yum!

Bicycle and pedestrian safety– stop at stop signs; look both ways before crossing the street, bikes- go with the flow of traffic, pedestrians- against the flow, wear a helmet when riding your bike, etc. Here are some activity sheets to print out so that you can take them to your assessor for documentation.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety– lessons and activities for early elementary students.

Bicycle Safety Kit

Pinterest has a lot of worksheets from which to choose.

Internet Safety– if you have not yet purchased an internet filter and your children are using a computer, please do so. There is a LOT of trash out there and children are accidentally exposed to things just by doing searches. Disney Circle sounds like it not only has filters, but also controls for times to be able to use devices, etc. I would also think about keeping all computers in a central area of your home so that you can keep an eye on what is on the screen. I am not saying to hover over them and that your child is not trustworthy, but you want to protect those gifts as much as possible. 🙂

Have a great day!

~ Lisa ~