WASH project preschool classes shared their celebration of Global Handwashing Day with their OMEP partner preschool in Dorchester in the UK. The activities were co-ordinated between Kangoro preschool in Meru in the Eastern Province of Kenya and The Grove Preschool in Dorchester, England. Photographs and videos were taken and exchanged between the partners during these activities and these are continuing to stimulate regular communications between the children, their families and teachers. The preschool partners were brought together through a World OMEP initiative focused on efforts to provide Education for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood (ESDEC).
The song (sung to the tune of the old English classic: “Knees up Mother Brown”)
Wash your dirty hands, (Sung as the children practice washing their hands well)
wash your dirty hands, with a rub rub rub and a scrub scrub scrub, wash those dirty hands!
…CLEAN! (The children call out as they hold up their hands to show how clean they are)
The children all drew their own pictures of horrible germs and drew posters to show the difference between clean and dirty hands.
At the Grove preschool the children learnt about a Princess who didn’t want to wash her hands…until she saw just how horrible germs were.
The children also began talking with the teachers about hand washing during a cooking lesson where they were making jam tarts ..so the teachers used puppets to sing and tell a story about the King of Hearts who wanted jam tarts, and the Queen who said that she would make some. The Queen had to wash her hands before cooking, and the King washed his hands before eating the tart.
The Queen of Hearts is a character from Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland story book. It is also the source of an old English nursery rhyme:
The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts all on a summer’s day;
The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away.
The King of Hearts called for the tarts and beat the Knave full sore
The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts and vowed he’d steal no more.
The children then acted out the story independently.
Practicing hand washing at Kongoro Preschool
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