Calling all parents! Did you know that December 5-11 is Hand-washing Awareness Week?

Being clean begins and ends with our hands. After all, our hands touch a lot of surfaces and objects throughout the day. Washing our hands kills germs and stops them from spreading.

One of the most important facts about hand washing is that it can prevent 1 in 3 diarrhea-related illnesses and 1 in 5 infections, including the flu. Remembering to wash your hands as an adult is one thing, but how do we teach our kids to do the same?

Hygiene: A Good Habit to Foster for Kids

The first step to fostering good hygiene habits is to explain exactly why washing our hands is so important. Kids are more likely to do something when they know why they’re doing it. 

Germs are small, invisible organisms that make us sick, and they spread through our hands and the objects we touch. If we touch something with germs on it and then put our hands in our mouth or close to our face and eyes, we can get sick.

Washing hands works! It stops diseases and makes it far less likely that we will spread those icky germs.

Teach Kids How Often to Wash

Many of us learned to wash our hands before dinner or after using the toilet. But the truth is, germs don’t care what time of day it is! Here’s a list of the different circumstances when hand-washing is a good idea:

• After arriving somewhere
• After coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose
• Before making or eating food
• After playing with pets or other animals
• After using the toilet
• After playing outdoors

Check out the Washing Hands or Clean Hands song on our Youtube channel for a fun, simple song that will help your kids remember to wash their hands.

3 Fun Ways to Teach Hand-washing to Your Kids

Children respond well to positive energy—even around mundane topics like hand-washing. Here are some ideas on how to make hand-washing fun for kids. 

1. Sing and dance while washing 🎵

• We should wash our hands for at least 20 seconds at a time. 
• Find a 20 second song and wash your hands until the music stops! 
• Try out silly moves as you wash, like shimmying your shoulders, shaking your hips, or making funny faces in the mirror! 

2. Make it a game 🎲

• When washing hands, focus on the top, bottom, between fingers, and under nails. 
• Challenge kids to focus on every part of their hands before the 20-second time limit is up! 
• They can even practice vocabulary words by naming the parts of their hands as they wash: finger, knuckle, palm, nail, pinky, thumb, etc. 

3. Chant the correct order of steps for hand-washing 📣

• The correct order is: Wet, Lather, Scrub, Rinse, Dry
• Make a fun chant out of the steps and see if kids can go through the whole process without forgetting anything! 

Hand-washing Fun for Kids and Lingokids 

Kids can play the “Washing Hands” game on our app for even more hand-washing fun! Here, they’ll learn how to wet their hands with water, add soap, scrub them, rinse them, and dry them off with a towel!

Interested in learning more about Lingokids? Download the app and check out the content on our YouTube channels. Do you have any tips for washing hands with your kids? Let us know by tagging us on social media!