A Teacher Shared a Tip She Uses to Make Students Wash Their Hands, It Went Viral

Washing your hands is an easy way to prevent several illnesses, like a cold or the flu. However, it`s hard enough for some adults to wash their hands regularly, let alone kids who are constantly distracted and have more interesting things to do. But there’s one elementary teacher who knows how to make sure her students wash their hands!

We at Bright Side think that if you get a bit creative, like this teacher, even a simple personal hygiene routine can become more fun. And at the end of the article, there are also a few tips from parents on how they make their kids wash their hands!

A lot of children get sick during cold and flu season.

Shauna Woods is a third-grade teacher in Missouri. During the winter, a lot of kids don’t come to school because they become ill. So Mrs. Woods was trying to think of a way to promote personal hygiene and make her students wash their hands more often, so that fewer children got sick.

She figured out how to get her students to wash their hands.

At the school where she teaches, Shauna Woods has a special stamp with her name on it. She would normally use it to stamp her classroom books. But she realized that this stamp could also be used for another purpose.

One morning, she told her students to wash their hands in the classroom sink. Then she put a stamp on their hands and said that, if the stamp was gone by the end of the day (from washing their hands), they would get a prize.

At first, the students wanted to wash the stamp off as fast as possible to get the prize. But Mrs. Woods explained that the point of the stamp was to serve as a visual reminder to wash your hands several times throughout the day. After that, it became a routine for her students to make sure their hands were clean.

Bonus: How parents encourage kids to wash their hands!

• My kids have soap with a figurine in the middle. They want to wash their hands all the time so it comes out quicker! @thedragoncompanion
• My sister took her girls (ages 6 and 9) to Bath & Body Works and let them each choose a “special” hand soap. They spent some time sniffing each one and chose their favorites. These are *their* soaps, and they can use them whenever they want. Not only does this guarantee that they wash their hands after using the toilet, but now they’ll just randomly go to the bathroom and wash their hands! @Magg5788
• Also, for toddlers and very little children, get a soapy bucket for messy activities. Like when they’re playing in the sand or dirt, finger painting, or anything like that, just put a little soap in some water in a plastic bucket so it makes lots of bubbles. Sometimes the soapy bucket becomes more entertaining than the original activity. @TheOneAndOnlySelf

Do you always remember to wash your hands? Do you sometimes use hand sanitizer instead? Are there any more tricks that you know about to make sure kids wash their hands regularly? Are your children`s classrooms equipped with sinks? Please share your thoughts in the comments!