How to Grow (and kill) Our Germs: Preschool Science Experiment

Germs, I don’t like them but I am usually not on a “death to germs campaign” but right before our latest Quirky bundle arrived (she’s a whole 9 days old! Boy, time flies!) we were battling rotavirus with the older kids. Anybody who has struggled with rota doing its rounds through youngsters would totally appreciate this new nifty germ-killer we got in the mail. Thank you, Patricia and Purely Products for having compassion on our family and sending us our very own “germ-killer” light to review! Thankfully, this nifty light helped keep the virus at bay.   We decided to re-create an experiment that we saw Jennifer from Copling’s Hobbit Hole do with her family, only we added the germ-light. Would the light kill off some of the bacteria and fungus that we could grow? .

Items needed for the preschool germ experiment:

• Bread
• Kids tongues
• Pocket Purifier
• Ziplock baggies

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Preschool Germ Experiment:

We cut a homemade pita into four pieces and then each of the kids and I licked a piece.   We talked about how there are germs in out mouths, in our saliva, and how they can make us sick and how we need to be careful not to drink/eat after each other and wash our hands before we eat, after we go to the bathroom, etc.   We also talked about the consequences of sharing germs (rotavirus is rampant at the time in our house, so we talked about who was sick and how they need to be careful not to spread the virus).       After licking the bread we sprayed each piece with some water then, two pieces were ziplocked and bagged (to be our control group) and the other two pieces got “light treatment”.   The Pocket Purifier UV light from Purely Products is really handy to use.   My four year old was responsible for making sure the bread pieces were lit for 15 seconds each (roughly, her counting is not exact).   Then we bagged those pieces too and set them on the counter to watch the germs grow! .

Gross!   Gross!

All of the pieces were moldy a week later, but you can see the obvious differences between the pieces that received the light treatment and those that hadn’t!   It worked!   And, after using the light on our stuffed animals, legos, and other porous toys that were hard to adequately wipe off with antibacterial wipes, the virus did not spread further in our house.   We had two people with Rotavirus before this light came in!   And no one else got it!!!   Our baby got to be born into a healthy home!   Thank you Purely Products! .

Do you want your very own germ-killing nifty light?   Tell me how gross your kids can be in our Mom Loop Community!

. This activity was included in the Blog Hop at Abc123, they have a great show and tell school time.   Check it out! Check out these books about germs too!