Covid-19 contamination may also happen through objects like toys and teaching materials.
In order to avoid nurseries, kindergartens and preschool staff becomes "walking washing machine", alternate quarantine is the right solution to spend most of the times on education tasks and use all educational toys and teaching materials available.
What is alternate quarantine?
Alternate quarantine consists of alternating the period of use and the period of decontamination by leaving the object at rest for a period of more than 5 days to obtain a complete disappearance of the viral load (7/9 days for a total disappearance of all traces of COVID- 19) whatever the material of which the object is made.
Why does it work?
COVID-19 needs a cell to keep it alive.
Without a host cell, COVID-19 dies.
What are the benefits?
- Concentrate the attention of the personnel on the missions of instruction and not cleaning.
- Use all the games, educational toys and teaching materials which are an investment.
- Reduce the carbon footprint of COVID-19 health treatment.
How to proceed?
Alternate quarantine consists of having a tray of educational toys and teaching materials for each day of the week.
The Monday tray is thus put in quarantine until the following Monday allowing natural destruction.
Ditto for the other days of the week.
If groups are organized for a single day, a bin is created for each group.
The teaching material case:
Many teaching materials or games, educational toys are delivered as a set for several children (4,6,8 or even a group set).
When possible, these sets are "exploded" in order to create several individual games which are placed in the alternate quarantine trays.
Recreation items like School trikes:
Recreation items may also be used with the same cleaning way.
Example:
School trikes day is now scheduled on Wednesday.
Each player has a school trike of which the child become the guardian (it is difficult but not impossible).
These school trikes are placed in "quarantine" until the following Wednesday.
Colemoi range:
All educational toys and teaching materials from the Colémoi collections have detailed maintenance and cleaning recommendations for each product at your Colémoi online shop.
Most of the educational toys in the Colemoi collections can be "exploded" by following the instructions presented in the game card cartridges, making it possible to transform a set for 4 to 6 children into an individual game.
This is possible to maintain such activities as fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, reading instructions, creativity, ... while respecting safety measures.
How to clean?
The person carrying out the cleaning is in good health and is equipped with protections such as gloves, glasses, masks and suitable clothing (2).
The usual cleaning procedures will be applied taking into account the different materials with the appropriate disinfectants (2).
Reminder:
Wooden products, cardboard or paper cards should not be soaked in water or any liquid.
Unless it has a specific coating, they cannot be cleaned with a disinfectant wipe.
As a general rule and with some exceptions, soaking is prohibited: certain objects may have holes sometimes invisible to the naked eye where the liquid can enter and stagnate.
Exposure to the sun is insufficient to totally destroy the various sources of infection.
Avoid the microwave, oven, hair dryer to avoid accidents (risk of explosion, deterioration, ...).
Wood, plastics, composite materials:
Cleaning is carried out with a cloth soaked in a non-allergenic cleaning solution (2).
Paper and cardboard:
The laminating of model cards in paper or cardboard is recommended in order to be able to clean with a wipe or similar (2).
Books, paper cards, non-washable dolls and infants, kinetic sand, etc. which cannot be plasticized are placed in alternate quarantine.
Cleaning frequency:
At least one daily cleaning for objects used by children, before or after use if no alternate quarantine (2).
Alternate quarantine does not replace usual cleaning of the toys and educational materials.
A technical solution: heat treatment:
Used in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore in certain nurseries and kindergartens, the heat treatment is carried out using a machine equipped with UV and infrared rays according to specific cycles in order to destroy bacteria and viruses.
What are the benefits?
- Quick cleaning (20 minutes about)
- Easy to use
- Safe
- Several time a day
- All educational toys and teaching materials can be permanently used
- No chemical
For more informations, send email to colemoi@colemoi.com
(2) According to local national safety specifications