September is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s a feeling of new beginnings, fresh starts, and warm fall colors. It’s hard to believe it, but we’ve already completed a month of school! I hope you are getting into the grove of your school routine, whatever that looks like for you and your family. More things on our calendars, practice schedules, sporting events, and early bedtimes. Bags to pack, lunches to be made, and folders going back and forth. It’s a lot to balance and keep track of. And one thing has been sneaking between home and school that you may be unaware of…GERMS! Yep, you may have noticed, that stuffy noses, coughs, and sore throats have been surfacing all around us. But not every sniffle and stuffy nose needs to stay home from school. We can’t stop all the germs from spreading, but we can minimize how they are spread by washing our hands. Good hand hygiene is the #1 thing to help keep us healthy. Germs are sneaky and they can last on our hands for 3 hours! Did you know one germ can multiply into 8 million germs by the end of the day? When we touch our eyes, nose, and mouth with germs on our hands, we are more likely to become sick. When we cough and sneeze into our hands, we spread germs on everything we touch. And since we don’t know what germs are on every surface, it’s important to wash our hands. This month's nurse presentation in the elementary classrooms is on handwashing. Students get to see “pretend germs” with a lotion that lights up with a black light. After washing their hands, we checked again to see how well we washed the germs away. It’s a great lesson to learn at any age.
Check out this attachment with links included to find out more ways to keep your family healthy this school year.
Nurse Becky
#BEAHEALTHYHUSKIE
