Shake!

At the end of last term we participated in the inaugural New Zealand ShakeOut national earthquake drill!

To start with we watched the Turtle Safe video (available at the bottom of the link), which the kids really enjoyed, they kept singing it for days afterwards -

then it was time to Drop, Cover, Hold!

 (grubby faces are what you get when you have earthquakes right after breakfast!)

Then the kids decided to be turtles, using their rugs -

 someone didn't quite get the concept...

Much to my surprise (though possibly no-one else's, nerd alert) our local library had quite a large selection of quake related books still available, so I chose these ones -

"Quaky Cat" and "The Butterfly and the Earthquake" are both New Zealand books, written about the recent Christchurch earthquakes. I recommend the Max Axiom earthquake book too, it has quite a lot of technical information about plate tectonics and fault lines etc, but presented in dynamic graphic novel format. Oh and a nice 'teachable moment' with two silly adults who stay sitting on their office chairs, panicking, instead of getting under their desks.

I also printed out some colouring pages for the kids -

 on of which has the Turtle Safe song for extra reinforcement -

I think it was a great exercise,  good reminder (for those of us not living in Christchurch or the Bay of Plenty!) to work on these things with our kids, and get them passionate about civil defense and being prepared. My lot have initiated numerous quake drills since, and I took the opportunity to print some planning & inventory paperwork for our whole household too.