A Vital Unit Study Topic: Emergency Preparedness

After living through two serious hurricanes with my kids, one of which severely damaged our home, I was motivated to get serious about emergency preparedness.

Jump to:

• Are You Prepared?
• Emergency Preparedness Unit Study Resources
• Emergency Preparedness Assignments and Activities
• Emergency Preparedness Topics and Projects

Are You Prepared?

Is your home ready to weather an emergency? Is your family ready to respond? Could your older kids happen to be home alone when an emergency develops?

Involving kids in a calm and informative way as you prepare for possible emergencies can help them know what to do if an actual emergency occurs. One way to do this is with an emergency preparedness unit study as part of your homeschooling.

Emergency Preparedness Unit Study Resources

Here are resources you can use to create lessons for your unit study:

• FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency in the U.S.) offers emergency planning resources for kids, parents, and educators, including this supplemental curriculum differentiated for lower and upper elementary levels, middle school, and high school.
• The American Red Cross also offers a guide to prepare your home and family for emergencies, as well as an online Be Red Cross Ready preparedness resource. 
• The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has lesson plans on fire safety including cooking safety, escape plans, fire prevention and more.
• The U.S. Fire Administration has fire safety educational materials for preschoolers, including Sesame Street resources.
• Louisiana State University has a Hurricane Safety Activity Book for Kids to help your children understand why you are making plans or taking certain emergency prep actions.
• Ready Kids includes a series of five videos highlighting planning for severe weather, fire safety, and earthquakes
• Oregon's Department of Emergency Management has curated a list of fun ways to engage kids in emergency readiness, such as a scavenger hunt around the house for the batteries and bottled water that could be needed in an emergency.

Emergency Preparedness Assignments and Activities

As you and your children move through suggested emergency preparedness topics and projects (in the next section), you can vary the approach to learning. You can use emergency preparedness as the content while giving them experience with various assignments and activities that will document, present, and reinforce their learning.

Here are some ideas for different types of assignments and projects.

• Read and discuss. Pre-read children's books about natural disasters, and select books to read aloud to your kids. Use your judgment about a child's sensitivity and the age appropriateness of the books. Discuss the books with your children. For suggested titles, consider:
  • Children's Literacy Foundation's recommended books about floods, fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and more
  • ChildcareAware's recommended books about coping with and preparing for disasters
• Notebooks. Have your kids organize related papers into a three-ring notebook. This might include papers you print from the lesson plan resources, coloring pages for younger kids, any papers they might generate themselves such as their own floor plan sketch of your house with evacuation route drawn in. Kids can create a cover page for their notebook and perhaps make a table of contents.
• Lapbooks. Choose some of the activities (in the next section) and help kids create one or more lapbooks from file folders to reinforce and show what they are learning about emergency preparedness.
• Videos. Encourage your kids to make videos informing others about important points of emergency preparedness. This could be casual, as in "in this video, show Grandma where we put the fire extinguishers," or you may have a child who wants to adopt the persona of a newscaster or educator.
• Hands-on projects. Let the kids do or help do the things your family needs to become more prepared. Here are some examples:
  • Create an emergency kit with your children. The kit itself becomes the "output" for the project. Any lists they use or brainstorm with you for what to put in the kit can be put in the kit and in their emergency preparedness notebook.
  • Involve the kids in painting or installing new, more prominent house numbers.
  • Change out flashlight batteries and put flashlights in good locations throughout your home.
• Slides. Your child could create a PowerPoint type presentation with bullet points or illustrations about important aspects of emergency preparedness.
• Reports. Older kids or teens could write a report about a well-known emergency and what helped people survive, or they could write a report about a particular type of emergency, such as earthquake or weather emergencies.
• Storytelling. Your children could tell or write a story that involves an emergency situation. This could be based on a true story they've heard, or they could tell a fictional story. Younger kids might just tell you the story aloud and draw their own pictures to illustrate the story. Some kids might like an audio or video recording of their story; others might want you to write their story down as they tell it. Older kids might do their own handwriting. You could even help them make their story into a little book.
• Printables. You can print out activities on paper such as puzzles, word searches, quizzes, and coloring pages. (Include in their notebooks!)
• Music. Use a phone number song to help younger kids learn emergency numbers. They can sing their own number with the tune from a YouTube video, and you can record them singing once they've learned their number.
• Roleplaying. Have your kids act out what they would do in various emergency scenarios. Participate with them. This is a great way to reinforce the learning by moving their bodies.
• Field trips. Visit your local fire or rescue station and have professionals speak with the kids about being prepared. You may also want to visit siren locations and learn about community warning systems, if your community has them. Some universities and community agencies may have seismometers for detecting earthquakes and may allow you to visit. Museums and historic markers may commemorate floods, fires, and other disasters.
• Brainstorming, lists, and dialogue. Include your children in discussions about the risks in your area, what should go in an emergency kit, phone numbers they should know, and more. For younger kids, let them see you write out lists of the ideas from your discussions with them. Teens and some older kids can make their own lists and could be responsible for typing and printing important lists and posting them where the whole family can see them in case of an emergency. (Always proofread their efforts before posting, with careful attention to phone numbers).

Emergency Preparedness Topics and Projects

These are potential emergency topics to cover in your unit study. Combine them with various types of assignments (above). If you are homeschooling children of multiple ages, adjust expectations up or down while covering the same content. For example, a teen may be able to do some research and come up with a list of risks for your area on their own. A much younger child may need to be involved in a discussion with you about the kinds of risks your family is most likely to encounter.

• Risk assessment. Consider and discuss what type of emergencies your family is most likely to face. Tailor your emergency plans based on your risk. You may live where your family faces more risk of:
  • Tornado
  • Hurricane
  • Flash flooding
  • Fire
  • Earthquake
  • Tsunami
  • Blizzard
  • Sudden illness or injury
  • Chemical spill/release
• Phones.
  • Help kids learn how to use cell phones in emergencies.
  • Help kids learn parents' phone numbers or the landline number and their home address.
  • Help teens program important numbers into their cell phones, if they have them.
  • Post emergency phone numbers on every level of the house. Write out the house address, too, in case a kid should have trouble remembering it in an emergency. In rural areas where roads are not well marked, type and post directions to your house, mentioning landmarks and road names and numbers to assist a helper in making way to your home. Phone numbers should include:
    • Emergency 911. Get emergency help from fire, police, and rescue responders
    • Travel info 511. Get travel information including traffic, detours, closed roads, and some evacuation information
    • Poison Help line 1-800-222-1222. Connects you to a local/state poison center.
    • Parent, family, and neighbor phone numbers.
    • Electric utility. You may be able to call or report an outage online if you have cell service. Make your power company's outage line a contact in your cell phone.
• House number. Make sure your house number is visible to first responders approaching your property. With your kids, do a project to improve the visibility of your house numbers.
• Locks. Make sure kids know how to lock and unlock door locks and dead bolts. This is a hands-on opportunity.
• Cooking. Have clear cooking rules that are well-correlated to the kids' competence level. Consider having kids and teens brainstorm a list of cooking rules they can add to their emergency prepareness notebooks.
• Smoke detectors. Another hands-on project: Have your kids help you install, check, and replace batteries annually. Halloween is a common time to replace smoke detector batteries.
• Fire extinguishers. Have fire extinguishers, and make sure your kids know their location and how to operate them. (Spray can fire extinguishers are a tempting substitute, but they were judged to be a poor substitute by Consumer Reports.) Replace old fire extinguishers.
• Escape routes. Help kids understand fire escape routes from the home, and designate a safe meeting place outside. Kids can draw a rough floor plan of your home and mark the route. Practice pretending fires have occurred in various rooms of the house and escaping to your meeting place.
• Fire escape ladder. Some escape routes from a second floor may require a home fire escape ladder. Show kids how to use the ladder, practice with the ladder, and store it in an accessible place.
• Safe words. Develop safe words your kids will recognize if you need to ask someone else to help them at a practice or event you are not attending with them.
• First aid kit. Have a well stocked first aid kit and make sure kids know where it is and how to use it according to their age and ability. Kids can help brainstorm what should be in the kit and help decide where to locate it.
• First aid & CPR instruction. Take a first aid course and CPR course and consider having your teens take these classes.
• Neighbors. If you live near neighbors, help your kids know which neighbors' homes they should seek assistance from.
• Power outage. Discuss the possibility of a power outage with your kids, and involve them in being prepared if the electricity goes out.
  • Flashlights and batteries. Make sure your kids know the location of flash lights and batteries in case of a power outage.
  • Well water. Stock up on water if a forecast includes the likelihood of power failure. You can even fill a bathtub with water to give you water for flushing if your home loses power to your electric well pump.
  • Medical devices. Inform the power company in advance if a family member is dependent on an electronic medical device. Your street might be placed on a priority list for repairs, especially in rural areas.
• Emergency kit. Gather items suggested by Ready.gov to help you survive or thrive during an emergency. Remember medications, prescriptions, cash, and items you may need for both human and pet family members. Ask your kids for their ideas of what needs to be in the kit and involve them in getting everything together.
• Shelter-in-place plans. Make sure your kids know where and how to take shelter on your property in the case of a tornado or severe thunderstorm. Role play to practice!
• Weather radio. Especially f you are in a part of the country that gets severe weather, use a NOAA weather radio and help your kids know what counties and areas to listen for in case local emergency alerts are issued.
• Public warning sirens. Familiarize your kids with storm sirens and alerts, what they mean, and what action they should take when a siren sounds.
• Food and water. Have non-perishable food items, water, and a manual can opener set aside for the hours and days following an emergency. Rotate your supplies to keep them fresh enough to use. Ask your children for their suggestions on what to include and involve them in deciding where to store emergency rations.
• Evacuation routes. Know your community's evacuation routes. If you have teen drivers, help them understand how an evacuation might be carried out in your area. This is tricky because panic buying is counter productive, but if you have a weather or fire season, be aware of fuel levels in vehicles you may need for evacuation.
• Fire Prevention Month/Week. Your state or community may observe Fire Prevention Month in October or Fire Prevention Week within the month of October. Look for educational opportunities offered by the fire department, and use Halloween as a reminder to change smoke detector batteries, check the dates on fire extinguishers, and practice fire evacuation plans with your kids in your home.
• Volunteer. As a family, help with disaster relief or community preparation for emergencies. The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program is a national program of volunteers trained in disaster preparedness and emergency response-including teens. Your family might also like to become involved in HAM radio as amateur radio operators, who are often much needed when other communication channels don't work during disasters. A local church may also have disaster relief programs your family can participate in.

We can never think of all the potential emergency scenarios, but there are some precautions that will help our families be prepared. An Emergency Preparedness Unit Study may help you and your children respond to emergencies more effectively.