Taking care of our bodies
section 10
5 years
57 meeting
Let’s review:
Once the meeting starts, welcome everyone and ask the participants: • Who can help us remember what we talked about in our last meeting? • Who was able to do the activity at home that we asked you to do at the end of the meeting? How did it go? • Does anyone have questions or concerns after doing the activity?
What are we going to learn?
How to help a 5 year-old be independent in the area of personal hygiene and enjoy healthy foods. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT! We are going to look at some pictures, so we can talk about what we all know about this topic.
What is the best way as parents, to make sure that your small children acquire good personal hygiene habits?
What type of food do 5 year-old children prefer? What is the best way to ensure that a child receives a balanced diet?
What personal hygiene skills do you think 5 yearolds can do on their own?
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Activity:
“A healthy body” We will make a list of foods that we can offer 5 yearold children at home and at school.
What we’ll need: • A flipchart
WHAT WE’LL DO: • Markers Ask the participants to write on the flipchart a • Some common foods from the list of foods that are abundant in the community. community to make recipes To review (meeting 52) ask participants to make a green circle around foods that help children to grow (proteins), an orange circle around the foods that make them go (carbohydrates) and a blue circle around foods that make them glow (vitamins and minerals). • Ask what types of foods are offered to young children at school (pre-school, kindergarten or prekinder) and at home. Ask how can we make sure that children are not offered sweets at school. • After discussing ideas, propose that the group learns how to plant and harvest gardens for the school just like their gardens at home, so that children will have healthy foods at school at a cheap price. Other Suggestions Share some new recipes with the common foods from the community that can be easily made and that children will enjoy. Make sure you include foods from the three groups mentioned above.
Summing Up:
What did we learn today? Now, we’ll review what we discussed today. • How do you feel after this meeting? Why? • What are the two most important things you’ve learned today? • What will you do differently based on what you learned during the meeting? • What did you like the most? Are there things you didn’t like? • Do you have any remaining concerns or questions about what we talked about? To finish, what would you recommend to improve today’s meeting when we do it again with another group. (Explain that answering this question will help the meeting be even better in the future for parents with small children.)
Facilitator’s Manual
23
To do at home:
Tell mothers to offer healthy foods instead of sweets and other junk food to their children, and to make sure that the children are washing their hands before eating and brushing their teeth after eating.
Basic information for the facilitator: Learning more about taking care of our bodies: 1- Oral hygiene:
• Cavities or holes in teeth are common in babies – especially in babies that still drink from a bottle, and children who drink a lot of sugary drinks and eat lots of candy. • Teeth with cavities will get stained and turn black. Cavities can also lead to infection in the gums and could make the baby teeth fall out before the other teeth are ready to come in.
2-Brushing teeth:
• It’s important to brush the child’s teeth because food and drinks will get stuck on the teeth and damage them and the gums. • Here are some suggestions on how to brush teeth and keep gums in healthy condition: • Brush your teeth at least two times a day using a soft toothbrush and toothpaste. If you don’t have toothpaste you can wash using a bit of salt and some clean water. • Try to brush all of each tooth (the front, top, sides and middle of the teeth). Don’t brush too hard. • After brushing your teeth rinse with clean water. • Clean with dental floss at least once a day to maintain good dental and gum hygiene.
3- How to treat a cavity?
• When a child has a tooth with a cavity (a black tooth), bring him to the dentist to be examined and treated. A cavity that is very advanced can get infected down to the root of the tooth and this is painful and can be dangerous. • An infection can affect a permanent tooth and can even reach the blood. This is very dangerous for a child or adult since the infection can move to other organs including the heart. • In some countries adults pull teeth that have cavities and replace them with false teeth that make them look better. However, when the person gets older their ability to chew food becomes difficult which means their body can’t absorb nutrients as well.
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MORE HEALTHY PRACTICES: Other positive practices to promote and maintain good hygiene in the teeth and gums, include the following: • Give children healthy food, especially food that is calcium rich, for example: milk, cheese, fish (dry fish powder can be added to rice and ground cooked corn) • Don’t allow children to drink to many sugary drinks between meals • Bring children to the dentist every 6 months so they can check and clean them. • Don’t share spoons, cups or toothbrushes that you have used since this can pass germs from mouth to mouth. • Don’t let children go to sleep with their bottle. Milk, juice and even breast milk can cause cavities. • Give your children a cup instead of a bottle to drink from between meals or when they are going to sleep.
Facilitator’s Manual