Put It in Order: Washing Your Hands
Five steps for washing hands at school, dealt out of order for the student to sequence and retell.
Tap two cards to swap them
How to run it
Read every step aloud before the student moves cards. Ask what has to happen before soap: hands need to be wet. After the order is correct, have the student retell using first, next, then and last while acting it out at a sink or with pretend props. If they get stuck, give the first word of the step, not the whole sentence.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentPresent the item and wait 5 seconds of quiet before helping.Log as correct
- Question promptAsk a story-grammar question: who, where, what was the problem, what happened next?Log as cued
- Two choicesOffer two possible next parts of the story and let the student pick and say it.Log as cued
- ModelTell that part yourself; the student tells it back in their own words.Log as cued
Adjust it
Use fewer parts, and keep a first-next-last visual on the table.
Ask for the retell without the pictures, with a feeling or a reason added to each part.
Matching IEP goal
Given a picture or story prompt, Student will put events in order and retell them using first, next, then and last in 4 of 5 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than one question prompt.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Five steps for washing hands at school: turn on the water, wet your hands, rub soap on your hands, rinse the soap off, and dry your hands with a towel. The steps arrive mixed up and the student puts them in order, then retells the routine. Hand washing is a daily school expectation, so the vocabulary is familiar and the order is worth being able to explain, not only perform while watching someone else.
What to listen for
Watch for students who put soap before water, which usually means they are reciting a chant without picturing the actions. Listen to the retell: do all five steps stay separate, or do rinse and dry merge into one vague step? PreK students may need to act the sequence while saying it.
Carrying it home
At the bathroom sink, ask the child to teach a younger sibling the steps in order. Take photos of each step and shuffle the prints for a offline version of the same task. Praise when they explain why soap comes after wet hands.
What's in this activity
- Turn on the water
- Wet your hands
- Rub soap on your hands
- Rinse the soap off
- Dry your hands with a towel
Questions
- Who is this for?
- PreK through second grade students working on sequencing a familiar health routine and retelling steps with sequence words.
- Is it free?
- Yes. It plays free in the browser with no login. An account adds session data, goal scoring and assignment to a student.
- Can I edit the steps for our classroom?
- Yes. Copy the activity or rebuild the list in Activity Studio as Rank Order. Many schools add sing the ABCs while scrubbing as an optional middle step.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.