It’s more important than ever to maintain cleanliness in the classroom. During a pandemic, teachers have a lot on their plates when it comes to keeping germs under control at school. Here are ways you can get your students to support you in creating a cleaner, healthier classroom environment.
Hand Washing
Hand Washing Signage Posted Across the Classroom
- Add a splash of color to your classroom with hand washing signs designed to catch kids’ attention!
- The CDC recommends washing your hands frequently throughout the day for at least 20 seconds
- Help your kids remember to participate in cleanliness by posting signage at hand washing stations and around the room
Hand Washing Reminder Stamps on Kids’ Hands
- Stamp your students’ hands when they arrive to class in the morning
- Set the expectation that their hand stamp should be faded almost completely away by the end of the school day
- You can even reward kids with prizes for keeping their hands clean!
Wearing Masks
Promote and Encourage Creativity with Masks
- Ensure that your students wear a mask from the beginning of the school day until the end
- There are ways to encourage students of every age group to wear a mask
- Find ways to make face covering fun!
Preschool Aged Children
- Younger children learn through play, according to ConnecticutChildren’s.org
- Teachers can make it fun to wear a mask by having children decorate their own mask, and to create “play” masks for their dolls or stuffed animals
- Give kids the creative vision they need to make mask-wearing the new normal, and make it fun!
Kindergarten to Middle School Aged Children
- Children ages 5- 12 generally want to understand why they’re being told to do something
- Help them understand why it’s vital to wear a mask, and how the human body works
- Check out this quick guide for how to explain coronavirus to kids!
- Children in this age group also like to know they’re being helpful. Demonstrate that kids aged 3 – 7 are being good helpers to their classmates when they wear a mask.
Middle and High School Aged Kids
- Teenage students may feel annoyed or frustrated with wearing a mask
- This age group needs validation
- Help middle and high school aged kids feel valid by letting them speak their opinion, but by also reminding them that its everyone’s responsibility to protect one another from the virus.
- Also take time to clarify why masks help fight the spread of illness, and clear up misconceptions they may have.
- Also give them the chance to be creative and independent! Have a design-your-own-mask contest and vote for most creative, funniest and most unique!
Social Distancing at School
It’s also important to remind your class that masks and hand washing do not replace social distancing. Students and staff should still maintain 6 feet of separation from each other and limit the number of people in a group at one time.
- Designate small groups of students who stay together throughout the day
- These designated groups take recess and eat lunch together
- Avoid communal gathering in large groups
- Plan a hybrid approach to learning (groups of students take turns learning remotely when possible)
- Arrange instructional spaces so that students have distance between one another, and from the teacher
- Minimize congestion by creating one way entry and exit points at the school
- Designate a COVID response team or person. This person or group will handle coronavirus concerns and create a plan of action to prevent spread
- Read the full article at EdWeek.org
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