Bye Bye Boo Boos

When you are teaching little learners small things can become big things quickly.  A little bump to them can seem like a "must see the nurse" trip and can distract their learning if gone "untreated".  My solution to keeping students in the classroom and learning, is to validate their "pain", by offering icepacks.  I buy a half dozen from the dollar store every year.  I put them in the freezer of the mini fridge in our classroom. I put each one in a new ziplock bag.  I teach the students how to get out a bag, and then when they are done they know just how to put it back with a clean ziplock bag all ready for the next "patient".  It's true at the beginning of the year there are frequent users, but it is so much better than long trips to the nurse for "growing pains". The novelty wears off, and then they are used much less. 

Another cheap and great trick is to simply use frozen wet sponges in a ziplock bag.  We use these at our camp all summer because somehow the real icepacks seem to get left around camp. The sponges are cheaper and you can make a big deal out of letting them pick the color of the sponge.  Bye bye boo boos!