The ‘decolonizer’ (with broom) has lost the
game. The children behind him have formed
a ‘colony’.
Here the decolonizer stops a boy from
completing a chain.
Where There Is No Dentist 2012 51
The colonizers win if they make
a colony. There are two kinds of
colonies: (1) 15 people touching
one monitor at a base, or (2) a
chain of 12 people holding
hands, touching two monitors.
Play two games: one with
children trying to form the first
kind of colony, one with the
second kind. These photos are
from the second game.
The decolonizer tries to stop the
others by touching them with the
broom. When the decolonizer
touches a colonizer with the
broom, the colonizer must leave
the area for one minute. (Give
that child a task to do—run
around the school-house or lie
down and sit up 30 times.)
The decolonizer wins if no
colonies form in 5 minutes.
After The Game:
Talk to the students about germs
in their mouths and how small
they are. Can anyone see germs?
No, but they can feel them and
taste them. Ask the group what
their mouths feel like in the
morning when they wake up. You
may get these answers:
• My teeth feel mossy.
• My breath is bad.
• I feel a coating on my teeth,
but it goes away when I
brush them.
To teach about things too small to see, look
at the suggestion on page 11-29 of Helping
Health Workers Learn.
Tell the students that this coating on the teeth is a ‘colony’ of germs. They
are always trying to group together on the teeth or in spaces between the
teeth—just as the ‘colonizers’ did in the game!