Health / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
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First Aid Unit: Germ Lapbook

Our germ unit took about a week to complete in part because of the amazing germ-experiment we did (more about that next week… the experiment was awesome!). We talked about the major types of germs: bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. While fungi can produce athlete’s foot and protozoa can cause giardia and malaria, we didn’t go into much detail about those. Some sources also consider helminths (worms) a germ as well (such as pin worms or tapeworms), but we also didn’t talk about those. We focused primarily on bacteria and viruses.

When we came together for collection (our group time), I pretended to sneeze into my hand. Then I set about greeting them in German (the kids are learning German because that’s what I know… well that and Hungarian, but unfortunately that’s not popular language to learn in school!) and stuck out my hand to shake. “Eiew! What’s that?!” LD screeched. I reminded them I had just sneezed into my hand and that I just sprayed millions of germs on my hand which I promptly shared with him. Of course they passed the sneeze around and examined the results.

It obviously was not time for German and we continued on with our first aid lesson! The kids and I really love the book Germs, Germs, Germs so of course we read that first. Then we talked more about the kinds of germs, how your body defends itself against germs and what makes germs grow and multiply. I read them a bit more about germs from a couple of online sources– here and here–which I had printed out and ready to go.

The kids filled out a few lapbook components to add to their science notebook.