ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

I disagree with the comment that was made about Jamie's comment. I for one do not have a problem with spanking a child for a wrong action. The problem comes in where a spanking turns into abuse, and a parent knows the difference. I am tired of people who call themselves, "child advocates" advocating against spanking. Spanking is not something that man came up with, but spanking is a biblical principal..."spare the rod, spoil the child"....sound familiar? Jamie Fox turned out to be a wonderful, powerful and very successful young man as a result of the rearing he received from his grandmother. How shocking and sad it is to hear whipping being recommended by an Oscar??? How shocking and sad it would be if he had not been whipped? How shocking and sad it would be if were in jail? How shocking and sad it would be if he were dead because of the lack of discipline? How shocking and sad it is for someone to take a a life altering moment, winning an Oscar for the very first time, and bring negativity upon it? yes, you are truly right...How shocking...How sad.

We sang, (to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?")
"Tops and Bottoms
Tops and Bottoms
In between
In between
All around your hands
All around your hands
Make them clean
Make them clean

The kids would wet thier hands, put soap on them, and then sing the song. They clean the tops and bottoms of their hands and then put their hands together to clean in between their fingers. On, "make them clean", they would rinse and shake the water off their hands into the sink.
They had a blast singing the song...the 3yr olds especially!

1) We have a hand washing song, sung to the Mozart tune, more familar as "ABC's" or "Twinkle Twinkle":

Wash your hands, wash them good,
With soap and water, like you should.
First the palms, and then the back.
So we won't worry 'bout a germ attack.
Wash your hands, wash them good,
With soap and water, like you should.

2) We have our water at the bathroom sinks pre mixed so that it's warm. Previously, when it was cold, we encountered much more resistance to hand washing.

3) Located close to a major medical edication /research inbstitution we have parents in our program who are in the medical/research profession. As part of our "parent occupations" program (wherein parents share their work with the children) one parent brought petri dishes with agar culture and did an experiment with the germs off the children's hands (unwashed, washed, etc.). As the cultures grew (or didn't) it provided lots of comparison and discussion.

Having staff and children get in the habit of washing their hands for germ prevention is paramount. The “tricks” for getting the staff and children to wash their hands are varying. One way we hit home the spread of germs, and therefore the importance of washing hands is to show staff members and children how easily germs are spread. Since germs are invisible, we illustrate their spread by making them visible, by dipping our hands in flour. As we train staff during a meeting or speak with children during group time, we go about our routines of touching things that we would normally come in contact with. The flour on our hands leaves “germs” behind which can easily be seen by all and transferred from one place to another by others that come in contact with it. To show proper washing, we rinse our hands under water and the flour turns sticky and remains on our hands. Once we properly wash with water and soap for the appropriate amount of time the flour “germs” are then removed. This exercise really hits home the concept of germ spread, which is often abstract for children.

When we ask young children to wash their hands many times each day it becomes boring for them. To keep things exciting for my classroom of toddlers we occassionally add a drop of food coloring to the liquid soap to keep things interesting. They get excited to use the different colors and tend to spend more time scrubbing to make colored bubbles.