Today's science exercise could not have been more inline with current events. I'm speaking of the Ebola threat here in the US, particularly in the Dallas area, where we now reside. Since we do homeschool and we never have the news on while the kids are awake {or asleep for that matter}, they do not always know current events like other school-aged kids. Shawn and I try to keep them abreast of things they need to know or situations we need to pray about, but we usually do not share every single bad thing we hear with them.
We hadn't said anything about the Ebola virus, but since we had just read about disease being spread in Colonial America due to bad living conditions and lack of good hygiene, I thought it was a great tie-in. I hope you're able to read the Science Exploration picture below that details what all we did for the experiment {courtesy of Heart of Dakota}.
In case you can't read the above picture or if you don't want to, here's the gist of what we did. I put lotion on their hands and then sprinkled glitter on their hands to represent germs. Can I tell you that they LOVED that!! I tried to be as low key as I could about the glitter in the new house; they did stay over the sink, I will say that!
The first thing they tried to do was take a dry paper towel and try to wipe off the germs. Germs remained! Next, they rinsed their hands off in a bowl of cold water. Some germs were washed away. Finally, they washed them in soapy, warm water. And bam...all the germs were gone! It was a good time for us to review how to properly wash hands and for how long. As Jase was finishing up documenting the experiment, I talked about Ebola and what it was. I told them about the man who brought the virus back from another country and came to Dallas and ended up dying. We discussed that we need to always wash our hands and keep our hands out of our mouth and objects other than food/drink out of mouth as well. They agreed. We also spoke about sharing drinks {at home} and to try to keep it at a minimal, especially if someone isn't feeling well. It is basically impossible to not share drinks with the kids, but I just wanted them to be aware that germs can be spread like that as well. We also use essential oils as a defense mechanism and take our vitamins.
We continued to talk about the virus and how it is terrible and we would follow precautions the best we could to avoid getting the illness {or any illness for that matter}. We then shifted gears and spoke about asking the Lord to protect us and others from getting the virus. Jase said "it's all in His hands" and I told him he was exactly right. While the virus can be scary, there is no need for us to worry about getting it because it will not help things one bit and worrying is not of the Lord. It was a great experiment and real life discussion with the kids.
Below is Allyson. Her picture is unrelated to our germ experiment! Ha! She just wanted her picture taken! So, why not!?
And below are the two youngest from Monday. I love the tongue/mouth action from them! Allyson was working on her 6's and Finn was actually using markers! He has been asking me and asking me to use them, so I finally broke down and let him draw with them. He loved it! I did not leave his side for one second with them, in fear the whole room would be colored. Ha!
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