Teaching About COVID at a Kindergarten Level

Ms. Neville was a kindergarten teacher during the 2019–20 school year at an urban elementary school in New Mexico. In March of 2020, teachers and students were given a one-week notice that the school would be transitioning to online instruction due to the pandemic. Given that students were both curious and concerned about the situation, her school addressed COVID as a standalone lesson across grade levels. She explained:

Since that week [before the school building closed] was so crazy, we focused on COVID for that. I think since we didn’t really know much about it, it was more focused on germs and illnesses and how you can get them. . . . The kids were very curious about it. I mean, they had been hearing about it at home and on the news, so they were interested in it.

Ms. Neville described how she used a simple demonstration, videos, and discussions to increase student understanding of germs and how they are transmitted:

We did a germ activity where they all had glue on their hands and lotion. . . . And then one kid had glitter and they touched something. And then another student came over and touched it, so just showing how the germs transferred from hands to objects. And we watched a few videos just about germs, and then we mostly just had discussions about it.

However, she indicated that she didn’t go into great detail about the virus. Rather, she tried to make sure the information she provided was accessible to students at a kindergarten level. As she said:

I don’t think for kindergarten it was necessarily like I needed such complicated facts or information about it, because it was more keep it at their level. . . . Activities that we did were activities that I had already done before about germs, like hand washing and stuff like that. So I didn’t specifically seek out COVID activities. Our district did provide us with them, but I didn’t use them just because they were a little too advanced for kindergarten.

Ms. Neville also reflected on the fact that it would have been helpful to have additional support for teaching about COVID in ways that were both age appropriate and effective at easing student fears. In her words:

I know a lot of the kids were really worried and brought up things like, “What if our parents die or we die?” Just very, like, sensitive subjects that I didn’t necessarily feel equipped to talk about. And then a lot of things about questioning or wondering where it came from, which I don’t think I necessarily had the tools to talk about that.

After their school building closed, Ms. Neville only briefly touched on COVID in her instruction. However, she did not devote any formal instructional time to the topic. As she explained:

I tried to stay away from formal lessons just to take their minds off things and just focus on school. . . . I didn’t really distribute any information about COVID or stuff like that to them. It was more like informally just throughout the live meetings.