With our placement student Raymond's experience nearing the end we have engaged in a variety of activities and experiences based on his observations of the children throughout their play. This activity was carried out with an observation of how frequently we wash our hands during the day and he noticed that sometimes we forget the need for soap! During our activity we used small bowls of water and placed black ground pepper on top of the water's surface. The intention of the experience was to then put a small amount of soap onto a finger and place it on top of the water's surface with the hopes of the pepper scurrying away to the outer edge representing what happens to the germs on our hands when we wash using soap. Though sometimes our experiences don’t go as planned, we improvised and shifted as needed to emulate the experience the best we could!
This type of activity is relevant and important as it allows us to demonstrate an abstract idea in a way that children can gather information and build upon their understanding of the things happening around them. Taking the time to not only recreate the experience but engage the children in a new activity had the children laughing as "the pepper is running away from my finger!"
After this activity the children were seen using lots of soap and sharing their knowledge with peers beside them, ensuring they too were using soap to get rid of all the germs we can't see.
Moving forward we are able to expand this experience in a variety of ways. Maybe we could put water into some single use gloves and freeze them to not only practice our washing skills, but also a fun sensory experience!
