Do you know why you only get chickenpox once? Today we’re talking viruses and how the body does its job to keep us safe from them! This is a simple ‘draw your antibody’ activity for kids to understand how white blood cells operate to protect us against viruses.

You will need:

• Sheets of paper
• Pens
• Scissors (with adult supervision)

Method:

• On a piece of paper draw a virus. You can make it round, or worm-like, with legs, antennas, five eyes, anything, you choose! What do you imagine viruses to be like?
• Now cut a specific shape from your virus, like a rectangle or a triangle.
• Using the part you’ve cut, colour it a different colour and assemble it back into the virus. You’ve drawn an antibody that matches your unique virus! You can draw viruses and cut out different shapes from them. Muddle the viruses and antibodies up more and then match them up again.

The science bit:

• Our bodies have white blood cells, they’re a sort of patrol that travels in your blood and destroys what shouldn’t be there, like viruses or bacterias. To do that, they create specific antibodies that match specific viruses. This can take a few days.
• Once the antibody has been created, you will start to feel better. The next time you catch this virus, your body will already know it and it will send for the right antibody, you might not even feel ill at all!

  Now with this easy draw your antibody activity, you can explain to kids why everyone is talking about COVID-19. It is because it’s a new virus and, until recently, nobody had the antibody that matches it.