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Here students will learn the importance of brushing their teeth on a daily basis.

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Dave and Ava - Nursery Rhymes and Baby Songs

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👍 Nursery Rhymes Collection: Brush Your Teeth | Healthy Habits Songs | Kids Songs from Dave and Ava👍

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Students will watch video and demonstrate proper hand washing

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This read along would teach children the importance of knowing good touch and bad touch.

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Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept read by Debra Byrne

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This teaches children the importance of flossing their teeth.

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Knowledge is power, right? By teaching our children how to make healthy choices, we're arming them with the ability to live healthy lifestyles. Children learn best by doing, so here are some easy activities that promote healthy habits that protect children's health and wellness.

Proper hand washing is key to keeping healthy, but it can sometimes be a challenge for little ones to remember the steps. To help them remember, create visual cue cards on the wall by the sink. You could do this by taking pictures of your child doing each step or by using clip art as seen below. {You can click on the sign, select save as, and print out for your classroom/home}. When demonstrating proper hand washing procedures, a good rule of thumb that they're washing long enough is if they sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" twice before rinsing off the soap.

Have you ever been sneezed on? Eww..gross...not to mention the germs. Here's a fun and simple activity to show children the importance of covering their nose and mouth when they sneeze. Take a little bit of flour and place it in your hand. Put your hand close to your face and do a fake sneeze, blowing the flour in the air. Just like the flour, when we sneeze without covering our nose and mouth, germs fly into the air and towards others. Give your child a chance to try this out... guaranteed learning...and giggles.

Taking an active role in preparing healthy food is an easy way to teach children how to make healthy food choices. One of Bear's favorite things to make and eat is trail mix. We use squared corn cereal, pretzels, cheese crackers, raisins, dried cranberries, and marshmallows. True, the marshmallows aren't that healthy, but they add just enough appeal to little eyes. They also give us the opportunity to talk about how sweets should be eaten in moderation. You could also add peanuts into the mix but since we are peanut-free, we don't. We also bag up our snacks into the small snack size plastic bags so that they are easy to grab.

Painting with Toothpaste and Floss

I've been brushing Bear's teeth since he was one. I've taught him the basics about daily tooth brushing, but still I thought we'd explore why we brush our teeth. We mixed food coloring into white Colgate toothpaste to create paint. Then he "brushed" [painted] the white paper with the toothpaste paint and a toothbrush. I tried to have him focus on using a circular movement. Then we did yarn painting with floss. After dipping the yarn into the toothpaste paint, it was placed on a paper and folded in half. Then the floss was pulled from between the "teeth" [paper], creating unique minty-scented art.

Just because school is starting back in session, doesn't mean that it's time to put away the sunscreen. The rule in our house is that if you're going outside, you have to wear sunscreen....even in the winter. Using an easy and fun activity, I was able to show Bear how sunscreen protects your skin from the sun. The construction paper represents our skin, t he items represent sunscreen. After w e laid them out in the sun for a few hours, the sun left noticeable damage to the paper. This was a simple way to show a preschooler why it's important to wear sunscreen.

We can't be with our children every second of the day. But we can teach them healthy habits that will help them to keep themselves safe and well through hands on activities.

I'd love to hear what types of things do you do to protect yourchildren's health and wellness. Share with me below!

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5 Easy Activities to Teach Preschoolers Healthy Habits

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Knowledge is power, right? By teaching our children how to make healthy choices, we're arming them with the ability to live healthy lifestyles. Children learn best by doing, so here are some easy activities that promote healthy habits that protect children's health and wellness.

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Teaching the proper way to sneeze can minimize the transfer of germs.

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You have come to the right place if you are looking for fun, engaging and exciting Health and Hygiene themed activities to do with toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners. Our activities are widely used by teachers, moms, dads, child care providers and more!

All our activities are available at no cost and are free to print and share. Select below to get started.

Art
Yellow construction paper teeth, white paint and toothbrushes. Have children brush the yellow teeth with the white paint. Frame the completed 'smiles with red construction paper lips!

Art II
Group collage: magazine pictures of smiles. (Not whole faces, just mouths - any kind - human or animal!)

Sensory
Cut the bottoms off of large plastic soda bottles and turn them upside down - they look like teeth! Spray them with shaving creme and give the kids toothbrushes to brush the teeth clean.

Science
Scrounge some small white ceramic tiles (from construction sites, tile stores, parents who are remodeling etc). Provide children with a variety of food products to smear on the tiles such as: jelly, ketchup, syrup,peanut butter etc, have children brush the teeth with toothbrushes and real toothpaste. Which tiles are stained?

Making Toothpaste

Materials
* 4 tsp. baking soda
*1 tsp. salt
*1 tsp flavoring(vanilla, almond or peppermint Extract)
*toothbrush
*floss
*airtight containers
Mix together, put in containers. Dampen toothbrush and dip in mixture to use.

Good Food Collage
Make a "good food" for their teeth collage out of pictures from magazines. They might even want to hang them on their own refrigerator to remind them which foods are healthy.

Paper Plate Meals
Have the children look through magazines to find pictures of different kinds of foods. Then have them cut out the pictures and glue them onto paper plates to make 'breakfasts', 'lunches' or 'dinners'.

Pizza Collage
Materials Needed:
Round piece of tagboard
Glue
Red tempera paint,
Yellow & white Easter grass or yarn scraps
green, red, and black felt
brown scraps of paper

Procedure:
1. Mix red tempera with glue. Let children paint tagboard with red glue.
2. Tear brown scraps of paper and crumple them. Stick them to tagboard (sausage). Use green felt (peppers); red felt (tomatoes); black felt (olives); Easter grass or yarn (cheese).

How To Sneeze
The new recommended way is to cough or sneeze into the crook of your arm instead of the hand if no Kleenex is available.
Group Time/Math
Graph favorite toothpaste flavors - mint, bubble gum or fruit?

Dramatic Play
Dentist office (call your dentist for donations!)

Dental Health
One thing you can do when doing dental health is to hard boil an egg ahead of time. Then bring in some dark soda. Place the egg in the soda for a day. Then the next day talk about why we should keep our teeth clean and how we can keep them clean. Then take the egg out. It is discolored, yellow, looks like plaque. Take a tooth brush with a little tooth paste, that's how you can fit in how much they should be using, and brush it off. It REALLY comes off. They love it. They each get a turn.

Playing Doctor
Let the children dress up in white shirts or smocks and take turns playing doctor/patient. You could bring out a shoe box filled with different supplies, bandages, popsicle sticks for tongue depressors, empty ball point pen for pretend needles, etc)

Visiting the Doctor
You could discuss why it is important to see the doctor regularly. Ask if anyone knows how to use a stethoscope and ask if they know what a heartbeat is. If they put their hands over their heart they might be able to feel it beating. You could show them how to take a pulse on their wrists and on their neck.

Health Talk
You could discuss the difference between baby teeth and permanent teeth. Discuss how it feels to lose a tooth. Other children might be able to tell you about caring for their teeth, you can emphasize:
teeth should be brushed in the morning and before bed teeth should be brushed after meals when you can flossing is important, too sweet and sticky foods need to be rinsed or brushed off as soon as possible.
Can the children tell you the kinds of foods that are good for their teeth? What are good breakfast foods? What are good snacks?

Magic exercises
Discuss the importance of exercise and a healthy body. Let the children suggest what kind of exercises to do.
* standing on their toes
* clapping both hands over their heads
* standing on one foot
* wishing hard
* clapping both hands behind their backs
* waving a magic wand
Put the exercises together to make a simple routine. See if the children can repeat them several times.

Fishing for Good Foods
Children can cut pictures from magazines (or for the little ones have them already cut) from the five basic food groups. Have the children glue these pictures onto a fish shape cut from construction paper. Slip a paper clip onto the front of each fish.

Make a fishing pole from a dowel and tie a magnet onto the end of the string. Label five small buckets with the name/picture of each food group. Have the children try to catch a fish and encourage them to decide which group the food belongs to and then put the fish in the correct bucket.

Separating Solids
Mix one cup of beans, one cup of salt and one cup of rice together in a bowl. Provide the children with a strainer and a colander and tell them to separate the items in the bowl into three separate bowls-one with beans, one with salt and one with rice. After the children are successful. ask them if they can think of another way to accomplish the task.

Fruit Plate (lunch or snack)
Give each child a paper plate and sliced fruit. Ask them to create themselves using the slices of fruit. Example; grapes for eyes, sliced apple for eye brows, banana sliced lengthwise for a mouth and a kiwi slice for a nose. This presents an ideal time to discuss the importance of eating well to maintain healthy bodies. When their creation is finished they may eat the fruit plate for snack!

Taste Testing Various food items
Blindfold
Cut up and clean various food items. Blindfold your child and have him/her taste and smell different foods. Have him/her describe the various tastes, smells and textures before they guess what it is.

Melon Bowl
Watermelon & various other melons
Knife
Melon ball scoop or small ice cream scoop
Adult cuts a watermelon in half. Have kids scoop out the inside using an ice cream scoop or melon baller. Cut open other melons and have kids make balls with the melon ball scoop from the other melons. Fill the watermelon with balls from the various melons. This makes a great summer snack or dessert.

Happy Face Sandwiches
Bread
Peanut butter
Raisins
Alfalfa or bean sprouts
Squeezable cheese
Other small food items
Spread peanut butter on one side of bread - open faced. Have child make eyes, nose, mouth and hair from other items provided. Encourage kids to be creative and eat what they create.

Growing Song
(tune: Are you Sleeping)
We need food and we need water
We need sleep, lots of sleep
To help our bodies grow
From our heads down to our toes
Grow, grow, grow
Grow, grow, grow.

Meet the Veggies
Tomato: I'm round and red
And juicy too.
Chop me for a salad,
Or dump me in your stew!

Cheese Please
(tune: 3 blind mice)

Cheese, cheese, cheese we love cheese
Please, please please give us cheese
We like white cheese oh yes we do
Orange cheese taste wonderful to
Yellow cheese is for me and you
Oh, give us cheese

Did You Ever See A Kiwi?
(tune: did you ever see a lassie)
Did you ever see a kiwi, a kiwi, a kiwi
Did you ever see a kiwi it's small and it's brown
It's brown on the outside and green on the inside
Did you ever see a kiwi it's small and it's brown
Did you ever taste a kiwi a kiwi a kiwi
Did you ever taste a kiwi it's soft and it's sweet
It's good and nutritious and really delicious
Did you ever taste a kiwi it's soft and it's sweet

Sneezing Song
I think -I am going to sneeze ..(ha chew!)
I think -I am going to sneeze ..(ha chew)
If you sneeze, pass the tissue please....
Ha Chew, Ha Chew, Ha Chew

Pass around a box of tissue at the very beginning of school. Each child takes one, teach the song then sneeze and then we get up and
throw the tissue away. The practice is a good practice to show them where the dirty tissues belong and that you don't want to have to pick up someone else's dirty tissue. Make a picture, but trace their hand and glue a tissue to it. Title it "I think I am going to sneeze!"

Here is a poem to use with your germ unit.
When you cough or when you sneeze,
will you think of others please.
Use a tissue or your hand,
so on friends your germs won't land.

Title: The Shape-Up Song
Sung to 'Farmer in the Dell'
We're jumping up and down
We're jumping up and down
We're getting lots of exercise
We're jumping up and down.
We bend and touch our toes.....
We kick our legs up high......
We jog around the room.......
We wiggle our whole body....
We stretch up to the sky.......

Tooth brushing song
Brush your teeth (chchchh, chchchchchhh)- those are brushing sounds
When you wake up in the morning and its quarter to 2, everyone's asleep and there's nothing else to do...you brush you teeth (chchchh, chchchchchhh)

When you wake up in the morning it's a quarter to one, and you want to have a little fun....you brush your teeth (chchchch, chchchchchch)

When you wake up in the morning it's a quarter to two, and you're lookin around for something to do....you brush your teeth (brushing sound)

When you wake up in the morning it's a quarter to three, and your mind is humming twiddledeedee....you brush your teeth (brushing sound)

When you wake up in the morning it's a quarter to four, and you think you hear a knock at your door....you brush your teeth (brushing sound)

When you wake up in the morning it's a quarter to five, and you just can't wait to come alive .....you brush your teeth (brushing sound)....you brush your teeth (brushing sound) ....your brush your teeth (getting progressively quieter, until brush your teeth comes out in a whisper)
Dear Reader: You can help us make this theme even better!
All of our theme ideas have come from our imagination and from reader submissions. Please if you have crafts, activities, games, recipes, songs or poems that you would like us to add to this theme.

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Health and Hygiene Activities & Fun Ideas for Kids | ChildFun

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You have come to the right place if you are looking for fun, engaging and exciting Health and Hygiene themed activities to do with toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners. Our activities are widely used by teachers, moms, dads, child care providers and more! All our activities are available at no cost and are free to print and share.

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Gets the students up and moving around the room.

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Learning the importance of manners. After video have children demonstrate how they can use good manners

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The Berenstain Bears   Forget Their Manners

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Students will play a game that allows them to make healthy eating choices.

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Videos, interactive games and coloring pages? Learning about food safety has never been this much fun!

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Create activity that shows students the importance of sunscreen.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Knowledge is power, right? By teaching our children how to make healthy choices, we're arming them with the ability to live healthy lifestyles. Children learn best by doing, so here are some easy activities that promote healthy habits that protect children's health and wellness.

Proper hand washing is key to keeping healthy, but it can sometimes be a challenge for little ones to remember the steps. To help them remember, create visual cue cards on the wall by the sink. You could do this by taking pictures of your child doing each step or by using clip art as seen below. {You can click on the sign, select save as, and print out for your classroom/home}. When demonstrating proper hand washing procedures, a good rule of thumb that they're washing long enough is if they sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" twice before rinsing off the soap.

Have you ever been sneezed on? Eww..gross...not to mention the germs. Here's a fun and simple activity to show children the importance of covering their nose and mouth when they sneeze. Take a little bit of flour and place it in your hand. Put your hand close to your face and do a fake sneeze, blowing the flour in the air. Just like the flour, when we sneeze without covering our nose and mouth, germs fly into the air and towards others. Give your child a chance to try this out... guaranteed learning...and giggles.

Taking an active role in preparing healthy food is an easy way to teach children how to make healthy food choices. One of Bear's favorite things to make and eat is trail mix. We use squared corn cereal, pretzels, cheese crackers, raisins, dried cranberries, and marshmallows. True, the marshmallows aren't that healthy, but they add just enough appeal to little eyes. They also give us the opportunity to talk about how sweets should be eaten in moderation. You could also add peanuts into the mix but since we are peanut-free, we don't. We also bag up our snacks into the small snack size plastic bags so that they are easy to grab.

Painting with Toothpaste and Floss

I've been brushing Bear's teeth since he was one. I've taught him the basics about daily tooth brushing, but still I thought we'd explore why we brush our teeth. We mixed food coloring into white Colgate toothpaste to create paint. Then he "brushed" [painted] the white paper with the toothpaste paint and a toothbrush. I tried to have him focus on using a circular movement. Then we did yarn painting with floss. After dipping the yarn into the toothpaste paint, it was placed on a paper and folded in half. Then the floss was pulled from between the "teeth" [paper], creating unique minty-scented art.

Just because school is starting back in session, doesn't mean that it's time to put away the sunscreen. The rule in our house is that if you're going outside, you have to wear sunscreen....even in the winter. Using an easy and fun activity, I was able to show Bear how sunscreen protects your skin from the sun. The construction paper represents our skin, t he items represent sunscreen. After w e laid them out in the sun for a few hours, the sun left noticeable damage to the paper. This was a simple way to show a preschooler why it's important to wear sunscreen.

We can't be with our children every second of the day. But we can teach them healthy habits that will help them to keep themselves safe and well through hands on activities.

I'd love to hear what types of things do you do to protect yourchildren's health and wellness. Share with me below!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Easy Activities to Teach Preschoolers Healthy Habits

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Knowledge is power, right? By teaching our children how to make healthy choices, we're arming them with the ability to live healthy lifestyles. Children learn best by doing, so here are some easy activities that promote healthy habits that protect children's health and wellness.

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Read aloud book about froggy going to visit the doctor. This will her students understand the importance of students going to the doctor and also the task of a doctor.