Drink More Water

StartSmart Pilot School : C&MA Church Verbena Kindergarten

《Little Raindrop Pouring Down》
Encourage children to treasure water

Stage 1: Introduction

Apart from daily diet, preprimary institutions are responsible for supplying children with clean water. The children, like everyone, need 6-8 cups of fluid every day; the amount is subject to climate and the amount of physical activity we perform.

Centring on the theme ‘Drink More Water’, Christian And Missionary Alliance Church Verbena Kindergarten organised various activities to train its pupils. It designed a game in which children pretended to be raindrops to experience the water sanitisation process; they passed through the treatment plant, the pipes and the service reservoir. By then they learnt to treasure tap water.

The school also distributed worksheets for children to carry on with the good habit at home. Through completing the water drinking record sheets, parents can contribute to their children’s development of the habit of drinking water. The activity successfully facilitated family interaction.

Stage 2: Start Smart!

Live: Where do the raindrops go?

Objective: To show the children that our body needs water. Every day we should drink 6-8 cups of fluid, of which water is the best option.

Time: 25 minutes

Materials: Picture cards or video clip of water treatment process; 3 balance beams, 2 soft mattresses, a kid tunnel, tap-shaped stickers, drinking glass-shaped stickers (8 pieces), hula hoops, and worksheets.

Let’s GO!

1. The teacher presents the picture cards or video clip. He/she explains to the children the water treatment process; he/she also reminds them that they should treasure water and drink water more often.
   
   
2. Begin the 4-step ‘round-robin tournament’:
   
   
   • Checkpoint ONE: Children pretend to be raindrops. They stretch their arms to maintain balance and walk along the balance beam.
     
     
   • Checkpoint TWO: Children lie on the soft mat. They roll forward to checkpoint THREE. This represents the raindrops undergoing the filtration and purification processes.
     
     
   • Checkpoint THREE: Children crawl through the tunnel. This represents the raindrops flowing to the service reservoir through a pipe.
     
     
   • Checkpoint FOUR: After passing through the tunnel, children will see a tap-shaped sticker and 8 hula hoops, each attached to a drinking glass-shaped sticker. They should jump through all hula hoops with both feet. This means we need 8 glasses (cups) of water every day.
     
     
3. Cool-down exercise; and debriefing of messages: We need 8 cups of water a day to supply the body with what it needs. Reiterate the concept that ‘water is good for health’.
   
   
4. Drink water together in the classroom.
   
   
5. Distribute worksheets for children to record their water-drinking pattern in one week.

Together We Win!

1. Low-fat milk, calcium-added soy milk with low sugar content, and high fat ingredient-free soup with low salt content are some alternatives to water.
   
   
2. We should be careful when choosing beverages. Most fruit juices are actually sugary water in fruity flavour and thus should be avoided. Besides, fruits in their original form are better than fruit juice since they contain less sugar yet more dietary fibre.