Suggested Health Education Activities

The following are the suggested health education activities per age group:

• Focus on good health behaviors, such as covering coughs and sneezes with the elbow and washing hands frequently.
• Sing a song while washing hands to practice the recommended 20 second duration.
• Children can “practice” washing their hands with hand sanitizer.
• Develop a way to track hand washing and reward for frequent/timely hand washing.
• Use puppets or dolls to demonstrate:
• Symptoms (sneezing, coughing, fever),
• What to do if they feel sick (i.e., their head hurts, their stomach hurts, they feel hot or extra tired) and,
• How to comfort someone who is sick (cultivating empathy and safe caring behaviors).
• Have children sit further apart from one another,
• Have them practice stretching their arms out or ‘flap their wings’,
• They should keep enough space to not touch their friends.

• Emphasize that children can do a lot to keep themselves and others safe.
• Introduce the concept of physical distancing (standing further away from friends, avoiding large crowds, not touching people if you don’t need to, etc.).
• Focus on good health behaviors, such as covering coughs and sneezes with the elbow and washing hands and apply face mask.
• Help children understand the basic concepts of disease prevention and control,
• Use exercises that demonstrate how germs can spread. For example, by putting colored water in a spray bottle and spraying over a piece of white paper. Observe how far the droplets travel.
• Demonstrate why it is important to wash hands for 20 seconds with soap and water,
• Put a small amount of colored and washable detergent in students’ hands and have them wash them with just water, notice how much remains, then have them wash for 20 seconds with soap and water.
• Have students analyze texts to identify high risk behaviors and suggest modifying behaviors.

• Emphasize that students can do a lot to keep themselves and others safe.
• Introduce the concept of physical distancing, covering coughs and sneezes with the elbow and washing hands and Face mask.
• Encourage students to express and communicate their feelings.
• Encourage students to prevent and address stigma.
• Have students make their own Public Service Announcements through school announcements and posters.
• Incorporate relevant health education into other subjects,
• Science can cover the study of viruses, disease transmission and the importance of vaccinations,
• Social studies can focus on the history of pandemics and evolution of policies on public health and safety.
• Media literacy lessons can empower students to be critical thinkers and makers, effective communicators and active citizen.