Thursday, May 11, 2017

Emergency Prep activity

This month in our ward we are focusing on Emergency Preparedness, including holding an emergency simulation camp where all families have been encouraged to prepare 72 hour kits and then attend the camp to practice its use.   To help the kids be a little more prepared we invited one of Emergency Prep specialists to bring along a few tents and teach the kids important things to remember when building their tents - he included looking after the gear.  The kids in teams then put up their tents.   We used the stage in the cultural hall because we were able to change the lighting using spotlights to simulate the sun going down as we put up tents.  We also then started packing our tents in the dark (as close to dark as we could while still being safe).  The kids worked great together and had a lot of problem solving to do in their groups.
We then tried an experiment of boiling water in a plastic bag over a camp cooker.
The take home for the night were some game packs for each of the kids to put in their own 72 hour kits.  Each game kit included:
- Printable games like battle ship, checkers board, hangman, snakes and ladders - all printed on two laminated sheets.
- 1 dice
- counters - enough for checkers (we used buttons in two different colours)
- mini pick up sticks (we used coloured craft match sticks)
-whiteboard marker

It was a fun way to talk about Emergency preparedness and  also give some practical experience.  It was also a great team building exercise.