6 Hygiene Tips Children Should Follow at School

Hygiene Tips for Kids

Worried about your child catching a virus while in school? Most children are not as conscious about personal hygiene as they should be, which further increases their risk of illness. Teaching your kids the importance of proper hygiene will greatly help protect them from various illnesses like cough, cold, and fever.

Talk To Your Kids About Hygiene

One way to help our kids thrive in school is to keep them healthy. Teachers often discuss proper hygiene in the classroom, but it’s crucial for parents to constantly remind their children about it.

With some practice and a little guidance, you can help your child develop healthy habits wherever they go.

Tell them why hygiene is necessary and how they can get sick if they don’t practice them regularly. It can be difficult to get a child’s buy-in when it comes to health and wellness, so a little creativity can help.

For example, you can read them stories about hygiene to help them understand the cause and effect of practicing it.

Hygiene Starts With The Hands

Children can easily get exposed to germs and viruses when touching dirty surfaces and putting their hands on their faces.

One way to stop the spread of infections among schoolers is hand washing. It’s one of the most important hygiene habits that you should teach your child as early as possible.

Teach your child to wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least twenty seconds.

Remind them to wash their hands before and after eating, after using the toilet, coughing or sneezing, or when playing on the school ground.

Let them carry a hygiene kit to school which contains antibacterial soap, wipes, hand sanitizer, and alcohol. In case they are not able to wash their hands, instruct them to apply hand sanitizer or alcohol.

Keep Hands Away From Eyes, Nose, And Mouth

Educate your child how germs can enter their body so they can keep their hands away from their eyes, nose, and mouth. Now, this can be a tricky habit to learn so you have to constantly remind them.

Provide your kids with tissue or a handkerchief they can use to scratch an itch without touching their face directly. Alternately, tell them they can only touch their face after hand washing or sanitizing their hands.

Also, try to keep their hair out of their face. Stray hairs tickle the face, causing an urge to touch their face frequently.

Limit Use Of Shared Objects

While you want your children to develop the value of sharing and caring, you also want to make them understand how germs and bacteria can spread quickly when they are touching surfaces and sharing objects like art supplies, cell phones, food, utensils, pencils, and personal items like combs and face towels.

If sharing snacks, pack them in separate ziplock containers so your child can just hand them over to their friends.

Cover Nose While Coughing Or Sneezing

Always remind your child to cover their nose and mouth when sneezing or coughing with tissue. Encourage them to use a handkerchief or wear a face mask.

Don’t forget to teach them to properly dispose of tissue and face masks, and then wash or sanitize their hands after.

Stay Home When Sick

If your child has a cold, cough, or fever, let them stay home and rest. They should also stay home if they have a contagious disease. It’s very hard to stop the spread of illnesses, especially in a school classroom where children are seated close to each other and are continually touching surfaces.

Disinfect Frequently Touched Surfaces

Teach your kids the right way to disinfect cell phones, tablets, water bottles, and other personal belongings regularly, especially once they arrive home. Consider spraying their bags and shoes with disinfectant too.

Give your child a ziplock bag where they can put used clothes, food containers, and other dirty items that need to be washed and sanitized at home.

Conclusion

Prevention is better than cure. Remind your children that although germs are not visibly present, they are everywhere – from air particles to frequently touched surfaces. Thus, they have to be extra conscious about proper hygiene so they won’t get sick and have more time for play and school.

Read about best hygiene practices in childcare.

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How You Can Help Your Kids With Their Book Reports

How You Can Help Your Kids With Their Book Reports

Writing a book report need not be difficult. However, kids do dread it because it seems like an overwhelming task. If that is the case with your kids, let them know the first step in the process can actually be fun. They simply need to book they will enjoy.  From there, here is how you can help them with their book reports.

Read the Book and Take Notes

A good place to start would be the book itself. Reading the source material will help you understand the key points that the book is trying to make. It will also allow you to capture the main ideas that the writer is trying to convey. Unless you read the book, you might miss out on the many details hidden between the lines. And without these details, the book report may feel incomplete.

Kids are often oblivious to these minor details, and they have a higher chance of running past them while reading the book. Hence, it is your responsibility to take notes of such details, and then help your kids realize their importance.

For taking notes, you should follow a chapter-by-chapter approach. Maintain a separate set of notes for any characters mentioned in the story. Word meanings are important as well if you are doing a report on a book of poems.

Along with those, you might also want to make notes on the various similes, metaphors, and analogies mentioned in the poem or story. This will make it less difficult for kids to make sense of these things.

Go Through Existing Reports and Summaries

While reading the book is the ultimate approach to writing a book summary or report, it is likely to feel monotonous at one point. Plus, after a certain time, you might start missing out on certain details within the book that are crucial to the plot. In such cases, it is always a wise decision to go through existing book summaries and reports before you help your kids write theirs.

Of course, you will need some expert opinion regarding the matter, which is why you should look for reports and summaries on trusted websites and platforms only. SweetStudy’s new book summaries section is the ideal place to look for this purpose. Each book listed in this particular section of the website has a critical review of itself written by literature experts.

The books also contain helpful notes. These notes are available for each chapter of the book. The chapter-wise notes make sure that you do not miss a single key detail that is vital to the plot, or any sort of character development.

While going through the existing reports and summaries, you should make notes of your own. These notes, paired with the knowledge you gathered by reading the books, will be more than enough to start working on the book report.

Help Your Kids Realize the Main Ideas of the Book

You have everything you need to help your kid with their book report. However, it is not enough, at least not yet. Your understanding of the book, its plot, characters, and the way it progresses will not be the same as your child’s.

Thus, it is important that you help them realize the main ideas of the book, as well as the key takeaways from the notes you took. Here, you are to incorporate your findings from the book, and the chapter-by-chapter notes you got from SweetStudy, or whatever book summary repository you used.

Once you have everything ready, you start helping your kids with difficult words or phrases and help them understand how analogies and similes work (if they are necessary for the book report).

To help them realize the main ideas of the book, you must first ask them what they think is happening, what the takeaway is, what is the writer/characters trying to say, what the emotion is for a certain scene, and so on. Afterward, you tell them whether they are right or wrong and if wrong, inform them why.

Start Writing

A typical book report has three parts:

  1. Introduction.
  2. The main body.
  3. Conclusion.

Ask your kids to make subsections in the main body. For instance, the subsections can be something like characters, key plot points, plot twists, etc. Subsections can also talk about noteworthy scenes in general, like for instance Hamlet encountering his father’s ghost for the first time in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The conclusion can be a personal note from your kid on what impact the story or book has in literature or their personal lives.

And with that, your kid will have a perfect book report if not the best in their class.

Additional Writing Resources

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Parental Controls for Phones and Tablets

Parental Controls for Phones

The use of a parental control app and is our preferred recommendation for parents seeking complete protection for children on their phones and tablets.  It provides monitoring for both IOS Apple and Android devices.  It goes to work immediately to filter and block access to bad websites, as well as monitor social media.

Much more than a phone location tracker, the right parental control app download provides a variety of features to monitor and restrict internet usage and control the use of apps being downloaded. Parents can easily customize settings according to each family member’s age.

With parental controls installed on mobile devices (including iPads) parents will be notified of potential harm to their child online  24/7:  Download Here

For parental control solutions for desktop computers and laptops (as well as mobile devices) explore parental control software

The Need for Parental Controls

Today, parents have a lot of keep track of online.  Kids are active on gaming platforms, social media, multiple search engines, YouTube and chat rooms many parents don’t know about.   On the other side of a child’s online access are potentially secret friends, cyberbullies, viruses, malware, ransomware and child predators.

Thankfully, the app does the work for parents so that they don’t have to relentlessly monitor their child’s online activity 24/7.  It works right away to filter and block access to bad websites.  Still, within the parental control dashboard parents have complete control to customize settings according to each family member’s age.

The Power of Parental Control Apps

Gone of the days of a single computer in the family room where kids go online under the watchful eyes of mom and dad after dinner.  Couples and single parents still needed to be extra invigilate but control was still achievable. Then came mobiles phones that put the world wide web in everyone’s pocket.

These days, the internet is readily available to young finger tips on bedroom computers, lap tops, tablets and smart phones. Within the last decade social media has only multiplied the challenges of what kids see and hear online, including exposure to toxic friendships and the risk of cyberbullying.

Schools can set up internet controls and blocking on their servers but for homes it’s not possible to implement a blanket approach to online safety without an app installations.  For home use, it is relatively simple to install parental controls on multiple devices for instant protection against explicit web content.

Parental Control Features:

From it’s creation, phone monitoring apps have evolved to handle all of today’s obstacles to safety. It continues to be updated to respond to new technology and trends that kids gravitate to.  Unless automatic monitoring and restrictions are in place, these hot spots expose young children and teens to new and unwanted content before most parents even know about them.

Parental Control App Downloads

Once the mobile app or desktop is installed on all of your household’s various devices, you can change settings for each child without having to continually ask for each device. Parental control apps for phones detects your operating system to give you the right installation for each PC or Mac computer, as well as providing parental controls on iPhones, Android phones and tablets. Simply visit this same article via any browser on any device then click the link below to guide your through the installation process. Or forward this page you are reading to your child’s email address on their device and click the install link below.

Parental controls on phones enable parents to watch all of these online activities in real time for any family member on any device; including apps being used, internet searches, YouTube, social media platforms being accessed, location updates, and screen time history.  

The Bottom Line:  A parental control app gives kids of all ages the freedom to explore the internet fully protected  from harm.  Whether it be research for school, connecting with friends, playing a game or watching a video, kids are kept safe no matter where they are using their device. The automation that parental control apps provide does the heavy lifting for parents, while giving them the tools to monitor and customize the controls they feel are appropriate for each member of the family.

Two important facts about the world wide web.

  1. The internet is a dangerous place filled with material that is harmful to younger kids and teens. This often explicit content is easy to access from any device in multiple locations, in many cases far from parental supervision.
  2. The internet is a vast wonderland of knowledge and information that cannot by replaced by books or the world’s largest library. Or at least it can’t be as easily accessible with a few clicks or taps from the palm of any sized hand.

How can something so bad be so good at the same time? Perhaps it is the nature of anything that wields such great power. Inevitably, it can be use for good and for bad.

The Evolution of Parental Controls

Parental control has been around since men and women first walked the earth. It’s the power to control your child’s environment in order to protect them. At best, it’s a loving non democratic system to ensure security for family members. With age, more freedom was given. Boundaries were expanded to give each family member control of their own protection as responsible behavior was acquired.

This model of parenting continues to thrive today without adverse effects, rather, positive outcomes where kids became teens and teens became adults with the ability to protecting themselves from harm. But the term Parental Controls has taken on a new meaning in the new technological world. Never before in man’s history has so much good and bad been combined in a single handheld device for the masses.

At the dawn of the internet, there were only stationary computers in the living room or family office that parents needed to monitor. Then came laptops and eventually the smart phone. It was a mini computer you could fit in your pocket, yet with more speed, storage space and accessible information from the outside world than ever thought possible just 10 years earlier.

Cyberbullying, once a new problem for kids online, is now a primary concern. Bullying has progressed from the playground to social media and it becomes a vicious circle when children are bullied at school and online by the same people.  Of course, cyberbullying expands the access of bullies to harass people they don’t even go to school with. Or, they can be from anywhere in the world and simply troll and comment posts where kids are already being mocked online. It very much becomes a mob mentality to an extreme.

Parental Control Software and Apps

The fundamentals of parents control over their offspring in order to protect has not been replaced by technology. On the contrary, kids and teens still need to be taught how to manage and use the internet responsibility. Just as they need to know to stay off thin ice in the winter or wear a life jacket while boating, they will need to because taught how to control their own use of the internet. After all, kids will someday be on their own with no boundaries except for the laws they choose to abide as decided by society. And one might add the moral and ethical laws in place to protect themselves and their fellow citizens.

Until such a time, parental control software and apps for computers, lap tops, tablets and smart phones are simply a tool. Just like parenting in a non tech world, kids need to learn how to use the power of the internet for their good. Simultaneously the technological restrictions that parental control technology provides assists parents in setting boundaries they cannot see in the real world. It’s a tool that can greatly control and monitor online activity in the beginning. As children grow, these same controls can be loosened as more responsibility is given.

This is the essence of parental controls in the modern age that compliments real world parenting to bring up our children. It keeps them secure from the worst of the internet, yet empowered them too safety grow in knowledge and education throughout their formidable years.

Features of Parental Controls, recommended by Safe Search Kids

  • Internet filtering and blocking
  • Online monitoring
  • Location tracking
  • Screen time management
  • Monitoring of app usage
  • Social media monitoring
  • Keeping an eye on texts and pics
  • Monitor drive habits
  • Activity alerts
  • Download
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6 Subjects That Should be Taught to Every Kindergarten Student

6 Subjects That Should be Taught to Every Kindergarten Student

Kindergarten students are eager to learn! Many people think that kindergartners don’t know much, but the truth is that they have a lot of knowledge already! After all, within the first five years kids are sponges for information. This rapid development continues into kindergarten.

Therefore, it’s vitally important that students are taught six different subjects.

These subjects are:

1.  Reading

Reading is the most important subject you should teach your kindergarten students because it is the foundation of everything. If a student doesn’t have good reading skills, they will have a hard time in their future classes. Reading involves knowing how to read, sounding out words, spelling words, and using good grammar when speaking or writing.

2.  Writing

Writing is another very important subject for your kindergarten students because they need to know how to communicate in writing! Even though learning how to write might seem difficult for some kids at first, it’s really easy after you spend some time practicing! Kids can learn how to write by forming letters correctly (both uppercase and lowercase), starting sentences with capital letters, forming full words instead of just a letter, and writing words they know.

3.  Math

Math is the study of numbers and operations. The most important math skills for kindergartners are counting, identifying shapes, sorting objects by attributes (such as color or shape), comparing numbers to ten, drawing given number patterns, and recognizing quantity relationships. For example: during your child’s first year in school, they should be able to learn how to count from 1-10 to show their understanding of quantity relationships.

4.  Science

Science is one of the most interesting subjects because there are so many cool things to discover! Some science topics that kindergarten students might be interested in learning about are animals, weather, space/planets, how light works, and anatomy for kids. The best way to teach your students about science is by taking them outside to explore nature or visiting a museum where they can learn more about science in a fun way!

5.  Social Studies

Social studies is a combination of history, geography, economics, sociology, and civics/government. It teaches children about different cultures throughout time and around the world. To make social studies more interesting for students, it would be helpful to create games that involve learning new vocabulary words for each unit you teach your class.

Again, art is also a fun subject to teach your students! There are plenty of avenues an artist can take, but some examples include drawing, painting, sculpting with clay or Play-Doh™, making music using instruments, and dancing! Just like science, the best way to teach your students about art is to teach them about colors.  Taking them outside to be creative or visiting an art museum where they can learn more about art in a fun way!

6.  Health and Physical Education

Health and physical education is a very important subject for students because it helps them stay fit and healthy! During kindergarten, students should be taught the names of different parts of their body (such as eyes, nose, mouth, etc.) and keep their bodies healthy by washing their hands before they eat and after they go to the bathroom. Also, kids need to know that it’s okay to say “no” when someone asks them to do something harmful for them, such as smoking cigarettes or doing drugs. By teaching these six subjects in your kindergarten classroom, you can prepare your students for future success in school.

Also, health and safety go hand-in-hand because, without health, we cannot have safety! In kindergarten, students should learn all about staying healthy and happy. This means learning how to wash their hands, brush their teeth, be active throughout the day, eat nutritious food, sleep well, not get sick easily by taking care of themselves. Health is our most important asset, so it’s important to take care of ourselves!

Conclusion

In conclusion, teaching kindergarten students is an important job! These six subjects will help your students learn, prepare for future grades and build good study habits. Remember, learning resources aren’t just found in books or online – whether it’s a field trip to the library or a science experiment during science time – exciting hands-on experiences will keep students engaged and eager to learn! Thanks for reading, and be sure to share this article with other school teachers you know!

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