How a Slice of Bread Made Hand Washing a Piece of Cake
Sometimes a prime example is better than words — especially when it comes to explaining something to children. That’s exactly what Jaralee Metcalf, a teacher from Idaho, decided to do to show her pupils the importance of washing their hands properly.
At the beginning of winter, when flu season had just started, Jaralee Metcalf, a behavioral specialist from Idaho Falls Elementary School, shared that she was tired of always being sick. Although the spread of bacteria in her class was inevitable, she wanted to show the kids why they needed to wash their hands to kill germs.
“We took fresh bread and touched it.” — explains Jaralee in her Facebook post that has been shared about 70K times.
The first piece was rubbed on all of the classroom laptops. The second one was a control piece — it wasn’t touched, it was placed immediately in the plastic bag and labeled “Fresh & untouched.” The third piece of bread was touched by the whole class using unwashed hands.
For piece #4 the whole class washed their hands with warm water & soap and, again, touched the slice. And for bread piece #5, they cleaned their hands with hand sanitizer and then touched it.
Many think of hand-washing as a chore but it doesn’t have to be. Make it fun. Use soap paper.