Preschool Germ Art Projects

Preschool kids may sometimes seem like walking germ factories that cough, sneeze and forget to wash their sticky hands. When you start teaching them about health, you will stress the importance of using tissues when they sneeze, covering their mouths when they cough and being diligent about washing their hands. One way to reinforce the message about hygiene is to have the students do art projects about germs. Art can help them visualize how they can control the spread of germs.

Preschool kids love to paint, especially finger-painting and making handprints. Let a child dip both of her hands into paint, and make two handprints on a piece of paper. Write “Wash Your Hands” above the images. Place these paintings on the walls above classroom sinks, in bathrooms and other locations where preschoolers can use a reminder about keeping clean and avoiding spreading germs.

Preschool kids use crayons or markers to draw a picture of themselves on paper plates. They trace their own hand on a piece of construction paper, then cut it out. Each preschooler glues a tissue over the drawing of his mouth and nose, and glues the hand to the tissue, to drive home the idea of covering your mouth when you sneeze.

Show preschoolers black-and-white cartoons of germs, such as images at the Art of Washing Hands or Twiggle Magazine websites. Preschoolers can click on the paintbrush at the website, use it to select a color, and paint in the yucky-looking germ. Or the teacher can download a PDF of an uncolored image and print out copies for the children to color in with actual markers.

Tell preschoolers to take a plastic spray bottle filled with colored water and hold it up to a piece of white construction paper. Each child pretends to sneeze while spraying the water, which makes a pattern on the paper. This shows them how germs spread when they don’t cover their mouth and nose while sneezing..