Signs that menstruation will begin soon
Overview
This lesson supports understanding of pubertal developmental and it’s relationship to menstruation. You may wish to include a rough age range for more advanced learners. This lesson could be extended to include more imminent signs such as moodiness, tiredness, tender breasts, stomach cramps, or any other symptoms particular to your student.
Foundation Knowledge for this lesson includes differentiation of male and female bodies; awareness of differences between babies, children, adolescents, and adults; receptive labelling of vagina; public and private body parts; receptive labelling of sanitary pads, bin, toilet, and underpants; receptive labelling of blood.
Generalisation Ideas
- Personalising the lesson: Ensuring that an appropriate adult talks through this lesson your student could be supported to identify signs of puberty development in themselves to bring awareness to imminent onset of periods.
- Normalising: Talking through all older and adult women familiar to your student and letting them know that they experienced the same thing.
- Consequences: If these signs are present but menstruation hasn’t yet begun you can prepare your student with a menstrual kit to take in bag to manage when it begins.
- Flipsides: who does not menstruate? Support your student in developing options if these signs are not present at a later age.
- Identifying appropriate people to talk to about signs of menstruation with. This could include having these chats in private.
- Watching a DVD or YouTube clip that explains the process in more depth.
- Introducing a calendar: Introduce a calendar to show the menstrual cycle occuring once a month. There are a number of cycle tracker apps available online.