Emergency Scenarios for Kids

Week 3: Several scenarios were enacted to practice taking action in an emergency.

The final week our emergency class was spent dealing with emergency scenarios. In all but one case, the mothers were the victims and the children had to decide what to do.

Each scenario was outlined with symptoms and steps for the children to take, but the children did not see the cards. The list was a check-list to help the parents make sure the kids covered everything.

One of the mothers was into theater and brought some stage make-up along.

Scenarios

Mom's cooking and cuts herself badly with the knife

Mom's eating and chokes on a nut

A loud crash is heard and the kids run upstairs to find mom unconscious with a ladder on top of her (The ladder was already removed when the photo was taken.)

For one of the scenarios we had a child do the acting. Meanwhile the kids were playing outside and didn't notice he disappeared.

He came zooming out of the garage on a bike and fell down. Several kids rushed over and wanted to call 911. After going through three previous scenarios they thought this was an emergency too. However, they all agreed that their mom's do not normally call 911 when they fall playing outside.

Mom was walking with scissors and tripped to have the scissors impaled

Mom was found unconscious and not breathing

Mom was having difficulty breathing and then fell into an unconscious state

Seeing the other moms acting this way was a bit unnerving. After several minutes of no response, even I began to wonder if it was a real life scenario. Thankfully, it was all acting on this day and we all feel much better prepared for an emergency.



Check out these great blog hops for more educational activity ideas.

Preparing Kids for Emergency Situtations

Week 2: We learned about rescue breathing, the Heimlich maneuver, impaled objects and stopping bleeding.

Thinking about emergency situations in advance helps both kids and adults prepare. In an emergency, kids should first stay calm and breath. Next, they should make sure the scene is safe. Third, they should decide whether or not they are indeed in an emergency and call 911.  

If kids are involved in an emergency situation, there are actions they can take before the paramedics arrive. Knowing what to do, and what not to do, is very important. During this short class for young children, kids learned basic first aid techniques.

ABC is an emergency acronym which stands for Airway, Breathing and Circulation. In an emergency, the first responder should first check to see if the injured person's airway is clear. Once it is, the first responder should check to see if the injured person is breathing. Once the person is breathing, circulation is checked. 

When somebody is choking (has a blocked airway) and cannot cough, performing the Heimlich maneuver can sometimes dislodge the blockage. It can be performed with the person who is choking both sitting down and standing up. Using additional leverage from the back of a chair will assist small people trying to perform the Heimlich on bigger people.

Other ways to open an airway include tilting the head back or rolling a person who has been vomiting on his/her side.

Once the airway is clear, the first responder should check to see if an unconscious injured person is breathing by listening for breaths. If the person is not breathing, rescue breathing can be performed.

Sometimes, in order to perform rescue breathing, the person needs to be repositioned. If no head, neck or back injury is suspected and the person is not breathing, even a small child can roll him/her onto his/her back. Rolls may also be required to move a person away from a hazard.

Rolling should not be done if a fall or any type of spinal injury is suspected.

If the injured person is talking it can be assumed that the airway is clear and he/she is breathing. The next step is to check circulation. Bleeding could be a problem. The first responder should work to stop the bleeding by applying pressure and elevating the wounded area. Something clean should be held against the cut if possible; towel, shirt, tissues. Impaled objects should not be removed.

If the person has severed a body part completely - the bleeding should be first stopped, then the bleeding area should be kept clean and finally the search for the severed part should begin. The severed part should be wrapped in a clean towel and kept cool by setting on ice if possible.


Be sure to visit next week for hands-on scenarios and check out these great blog hops for more kid activities.

What is an emergency?

One local former EMT mom put together a three week (one hour per week) emergency preparation class for kids. During the first week kids learned to recognize an emergency. The second week covered what to do in an emergency - stay calm, call 911 (or 112 for us in Germany), check Airway, Breathing and Circulation (ABC's). The third week was reserved for hands-on practicals.

Week 1: We discussed different emergency situations, learned about different types of emergencies, emergency related vocabulary and made family fire emergency plans.


What is an Emergency?

Should emergency services be called if:
the house is on fire?
mom falls down the stars and is acting strange?
the roof blew off the house and a sister is stuck under a bookshelf?
the baby is playing with blood pressure medicine and the top is off the bottle?

During our emergency class the kids were given sticky notes and pens to write down possible emergencies. Then they had to decide if the emergency was a Natural Hazard or Disaster, Man-Made Hazard, Criminal Emergency or an Injury/Medical Emergency.

Emergency Language
Many words associated with emergencies aren't part of our everyday conversations and are therefore unknown to lots of children. Unconsciousness, impaled objects, and possible neck or back injuries were eagerly discussed, as well as personal stories relating to emergencies and injuries.

Fire Emergency/Family Plan
Discussing what to do in case of fire before hand is of critical importance as it makes reactions automatic. Here's what we told the kids.

In case of fire the number one priority is to get to a safe place. Assist siblings if necessary, but don't put yourself in greater danger by searching for a pet or phone inside a burning house. Know your designated family meeting spot away from the house. Stop, Drop, and Roll if hair or clothing catches on fire. If the smoke is think crawl because the low air is more breathable. 

Phone Number List
Placing a sheet of paper near the phone with fire, police, poison, and other emergency numbers can help those who forget everything under pressure.


Preparing for an emergency by exploring different scenarios can save time during a crisis. Knowing what to do helps those assisting in an emergency take quicker and better action. My children learned so much and I would highly recommend organizing a class such as this covering basic emergency procedures. I still hope these skills never have to be used, but it's a good idea to have a plan of action.

Albrecht Durer Art Project for Kids

Renaissance Unit Study

Week 10: We drew hands like Albrecht Durer. (OK - So maybe not exactly like Albrecht Durer.)


Albrecht Durer was a 15th century artist from Nuremberg, Germany who lived around the time the printing press was invented. Much of his artwork was done by etching wooden blocks and printing the blocks onto paper. Religion was the subject of many pieces, and his self-portrait resembles an image of Jesus. In addition to religious works, he studied plants, animals and human anatomy.

Like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists, Durer, spent time dissecting humans and animals to learn how they were put together. In fact, Durer wrote four books on the subject of human proportion. Because the artists spent so much time studying anatomy, art, history and science truly came together in this lesson.

Albrecht Durer's Praying Hands are full of detail. Shading, nail and wrinkle definition, as well as bone structure can all be see in this piece of art. The image resembles a photograph.

This How to Draw Hands video explains how to draw human hands in any position. It is 40 minutes long, and got us started so well that we felt confident to give hand drawing a try.

The four main steps in drawing hands are palm, wrist, fingers and thumb. The palm is shaped like a wedge block and should be drawn first. The wrist comes into the hand aligned with the pinky side of the hand. On the opposite side, the thumb is drawn at the base of the hand. The fingers are just shorter than the height of the palm and spread from a single point at the base of the hand.

The first decision in drawing our hands was deciding on position. Once we had an idea we proceeded with the palms.

A lot of time was spent looking at our own hands.

Once the drawings were complete they were outlined with markers and colored with colored pencils.

The project was a huge challenge, and great learning experience. The hands above are mine. The kids all did much better.

 My 7 year old daughter's hand.

 My 10 year old son's hands. They are both left hands.

 My 12 year old daughter's hands.

Leonardo da Vinci Vitruvian Man Activity for Kids

Renaissance Unit Study - Week 4

We measured ourselves to determine if we were Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

Leonardo da Vinci was a true Renaissance Man. He was a scientist, inventor, artist, engineer and truly one of the greatest thinkers of all time. The 13 minute movie Renaissance Artist Leonardo da Vinci was created for children and does an excellent job of entertaining while packing in information about Leonardo.

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is one of his most famous sketches. It is so much more than a work of art. The man's belly button is located at the center of the circle and circle and square show the proportionality between height and arm span.

Primary Resources offers a free Vitruvian Man worksheet located under the Length/Distance section, highlighted with a bulleted yellow number 4 on the webpage.

The worksheet asks the question: Are you Leonardo's Vitruvian Man? Kids measure several body parts and then answer questions such as were the height and arm span the same? It's quite simple and interesting.

For more hands-on learning activities be sure to visit our subject pages.
Math
History
Science

Human Body - Week 25 - Reproduction

Week 25: We made a model of the reproductive system.

A human body study would not be complete without covering the reproductive system. During the past year we began our human body unit study with cells and progressed through the body covering the digestive system, the nervous system, liver, spleen, circulatory system and so much more. Kids are naturally curious about reproduction and incorporating the topic as part of the human body study seemed natural.

Reproduction is a highly personal topic especially in regards to what we tell our kids. In our house we have been honest and answered all of the very detailed kid questions. Therefore, before beginning this lesson the kids had a good understanding of reproduction. In fact, the two oldest kids witnessed their sister's birth.


From our prior discussions the kids knew that daddies put babies into mommies bellies with their penis. When sperm go in they search for an egg inside the mommy. Mommies have three holes; one for urine, one for feces and one for babies. Daddies have two holes; one for feces and the other is for urine and sperm. Babies go in and out through the same hole. Daddies get to decide when babies go in, but mommies have to say it's alright.

All the kids knew was discussed mostly in the car over the course of several years and through many questions............ (I'm taking a deep breath.)

The reproductive system is the only human body system that takes a boy and a girl to make it work. All the other systems are contained within our bodies. I taught this lesson much like my numerous other human body lessons. We made a model using craft supplies and household items and talked about what the model represented and how the body worked.

First we made simple models of boy parts and girl parts.

Girl Parts
The red liquid (water with red food coloring) represented blood. The plastic bag was the uterus. Two yellow straws were stuck into the plastic bag near the top and represented the fallopian tubes and the pink straw at the bottom was taped into a hole in the bag and represented the vagina. There was also a bowl of tiny beads to represent the eggs (not pictured above, but can be seen below).

Boy Parts
The two glasses of yellow liquid (water and yellow food coloring) represented the testes. The syringe represented the penis.

The girls handled the girl parts and my son took care of the boy parts. The girls had a lot to do. We began with a uterus full of blood and then began counting. (1-28 to represent a 28 day cycle.)

As we counted from 1 to 5 the blood was drained from the uterus (menstruation).

We continued counting. At 14, a small bead (egg) was placed into one of the straws (fallopian tubes) which traveled to the plastic bag (uterus). Red water (blood) filled the uterus as we counted from 15 to 28.

No fertilization took place. We began counting again from 1 to 5 blood while blood and the egg drained from the uterus.

Up to this point my son did not have any tasks, but kept himself busy playing.

Finally we told him it was time. At 14 another egg traveled down the fallopian tube and he was able to add some yellow water (sperm) to the uterus.

I told the kids that if the water turned orange they would get a baby, because that meant that the sperm had found the egg.

So he put in yellow water several times and the girls wanted him to.

They got a baby and the girls wondered how it was going to fit through the straw. I told them that normally it stretches, but they would have to put a hole into the plastic bag (uterus) to get it out. We didn't talk about c-sections, but it would have been a good opportunity.

They got a baby bird?

This project turned out to be a very relaxed way to talk about an uncomfortable subject. As they get older we will begin to talk about STD's and other related topics, but I think this is definitely enough for now. The activity raised a few more questions, but it answered many more than it raised. My favorite quote came from my six year old daughter at the end; "I don't like the girl part. It's messy." If she only knew how insightful she was.

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading about our reproduction activity. I hope you enjoyed it and didn't find it too uncomfortable.

This is the last post in our human body unit, but there is much more science to come. Over the next few weeks I have some Astronomy posts planned and then will be moving onto Earth Science.

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Human Body - Week 24 - Muscles

Week 24: The kids located muscles in the body and took turns as physical trainers explaining exercises to target those muscles.

Muscles enable us to move and it is very important to exercise them to keep them strong.

For this week's human body study each child had a list of four muscles. Their task was to figure out where the muscles were, create exercises that targeted the muscles and train the family.

Muscle List
Deltoids
Biceps
Abdominals
Hamstrings
Frontalis
Triceps
Calves
Latissimus Dorsi
Pectoral
Gluteus Maximus
Quadracepts
Trapezius

 To identify the muscles my son immediately turned to the computer.

My daughter turned to a book. Both methods worked well.

 He's doing push-ups to strengthen his pectoral muscles.

 The frontalis muscle is in the forehead. She is raising her eyebrows to strengthen the frontalis.

Push-ups with hands forming a small triangle was my husband's idea for strengthening the tricep muscles. It was very challenging.

 He's doing a bicep curl using the chair as weight.

I was surprised by how difficult it was for the kids to connect body movement to specific muscles. By the end I think they got the idea. They definitely learned the locations and scientific names of a few muscles in the body and had some fun doing it.