The Power Of Videos

Videos can be such a powerful tool, if used appropriately, in a lesson.  Therefore, I am going to share a lesson in which I used a video to enhance the lesson.

Essential Standard:

K.PCH.1: Apply measures for cleanliness and disease prevention.

Clarifying Objective:

K.PCH.1.1: Use steps of correct hand washing at appropriate times throughout the day.

Lesson Objective:

By the end of the lesson, the students will know the importance of washing their hands, when they should wash their hands, and the steps to washing their hands.

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ24EfM7sEw

Source:

[SaskatoonHealthReg]. (2014, September 21). Germ Smart Kids- How To Wash Your Hands. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ24EfM7sEw.   

In this lesson, the students will be learning how to wash their hands.  I chose this video for many reasons.  First, this video emphasizes the importance of washing your hands every day in order to keep the germs away so you don’t get sick.  Children don’t enjoy being sick so that part of the video is a strategy that helps motivate them to wash their hands.  It is also very important to remember that students need to know the answer to the question “why?”.  It wouldn’t be nearly as effective if you just told the students they needed to wash their hands and didn’t tell them why they need to wash their hands.  The video also tells the students when they should wash their hands like after using the bathroom and before eating.  It is very difficult for children to just grasp the broad concept of washing their hands without giving them some sort of guidelines as to when they should wash their hands.  Then the video shows the exact steps that they need to take when washing their hands.  What I think is extremely beneficial for the students in this part of this video is that not only are the steps being shown in the video but there is a narrator telling the steps out loud and there is an icon that pops up that has the steps in writing accompanied by a still image showing the step.  Lastly, it covers the “what if?” question that most young students often ask.  It tells the students to use hand sanitizer if there is not a sink available.  It even provides the steps to that process for the students.  Overall, this video really attracts the attention of all students because not only does it have a germ song but it also has funny animated germs that talk.

I (the teacher) will teach this content during the teacher input part of my lesson.  I will stop the video after each point that I talked about in the above paragraph and I will ask the students to explain/share with the class what they learned.  I will also ask questions such as “When is a time that we should wash our hands”?