Lower Elementary, Genevieve
Life for a child with type 1 diabetes is not easy, every day presents a new challenge for the child, family members, and teachers. Family, friends, teachers, and other people who are close to a child with diabetes have a lot to learn in order to help them manage their health. Learning how to deal with type 1 diabetes can be very overwhelming for everybody involved especially in lower elementary grades because they are still at an age where they are not 100% capable of taking care of themselves.
Posters For Awareness
If you were a child in a class with a student diagnosed with type 1 diabetes you may be curious about why they have to poke their fingers to test their blood, get needles from the teacher, or eat at specific times throughout the day. In order to honor the diversity of children in my classroom who have juvenile diabetes I would create a lesson to raise awareness of the disease. This video does an excellent job of explaining what happens to your body when you have diabetes for kids in grades one to three. Diabetes is put into terms that kids could understand and in addition to explaining the biology of the disease it also explains the symptoms and management to kids.
After watching this video I would have a class brainstorming session to review some of the things that they learned about diabetes from the video. You could prompt them with the following questions:
Video link: http://youtu.be/A8iFbduZF14
Other Resources:
http://www.jdrf.ca/
After watching this video I would have a class brainstorming session to review some of the things that they learned about diabetes from the video. You could prompt them with the following questions:
- what are your body's warning signs that you may have diabetes?
- what does your pancreas stop making when you have diabetes?
- what are some things that can happen to you if your blood sugar is too high or too low?
- what are some of the best ways to manage your diabetes?
Video link: http://youtu.be/A8iFbduZF14
Other Resources:
http://www.jdrf.ca/