How to Prepare Your Kids for an Emergency At School
Disaster can strike anyone, anywhere at anytime. It seems we’re learning this lesson over and over again with more frequency these days.
Whether it’s a natural disaster, a terrorist attack or mass shooting, a nuclear threat or any number of other potential hazards, more and more people are learning the importance of being prepared for anything in this volatile world.
But the focus on preparedness is still placed firmly on the home. “Preppers” typically concentrate on building up their supplies at home and being ready to bug out if needed. And even if you don’t consider yourself a prepper, it’s still recommended that you have at least 72 hours (3 days) worth of emergency food and supplies to help get you and your family through an emergency.
The problem with all of this is that it’s based on the assumption that you and your family will all be together if and when disaster does strike.
What if your kids are at school when the worst happens?
While some of us are lucky enough to be home with our kids or be homeschooling them, many of us work outside the home and/or have children in public or private schools or daycare. Imagine a catastrophe happens while your children are away from you at school or daycare. How do you prepare them (and yourself) for this scenario?
As a teacher as well as a mother, homesteader and “prepper,” I am always concerned with emergency preparedness at school. After all, kids are typically at school for at least 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Odds are relatively high that they will be at school when an emergency happens.
As a teacher, I know that I need to be prepared to care for my students in an emergency, and I would hope that you all can count on your kids’ teachers to do the same. But there are steps you can take as a parent to help prepare your kids for an emergency at school. Here are my top 5 tips…
5 Ways to Prepare Your Kids for an Emergency at School
1. Know Your School’s Emergency Protocols
All schools have certain protocol that they follow in the event of an emergency. Find out what it is. Where on the school grounds do students and teachers meet if they need to evacuate? What do they learn to do in drills? What is the protocol for different emergency scenarios (ie. fire, earthquake, flood, shooting, etc.)? How will parents be contacted/make contact with their children in the event of an emergency? What type of emergency supplies are kept at the school? Which staff members have First Aid training?
Knowing your school’s emergency protocols will empower you and your children as you’ll know what to expect and can discuss this more at home with your kids. It will also give you peace of mind knowing there are competent staff members ready to care for your children in an emergency. And of course, if you have any concerns, this should allow you ample time to address them before something does happen.
2. Have Your School’s Information Handy
Along with knowing your school’s protocol, you should definitely have all of the school information handy in case you need to reach someone in an emergency or send help. What is the office phone number? What’s the address? What’s the name of the principal, teachers, secretary, etc.
Also, know your children’s schedules. What time does school begin and end? What time is recess, lunch, P.E., etc. Also, if you have high school-aged children who move around to different classes throughout the day, it’s important to have a copy of their schedule so that you know what class they are in at any given time.
Having a copy of the school map is also a great idea, especially for large schools with lots of students. This can make it easier to find your child and/or to direct them to a safe place in the event of a disaster or attack.
3. Talk to Your Children About Possible Emergency Scenarios
It’s important to talk to your kids about the likelihood of various scenarios as well as what to expect and how to react in each one. Depending on your child’s age, the way you talk to them and the information you share might differ.
You should be careful not to scare your child or make them worry too much, especially if they are young. This can cause extreme debilitating anxiety and fearfulness of school in some children so be careful how you approach this topic.
On this note, it is also important to mentally prepare your children for how to react in an emergency. Tell them to breathe and stay calm. Count backward from 10 if they are starting to panic. Go over how to mentally handle things like a shooting or being trapped in an earthquake. Staying calm can be the difference between life and death sometimes.
Go over different emergency scenarios and best responses (as well as back up plans) for each of your children. Also, let them know what you will be doing on your end if disaster strikes. This can help ease their mind if they can’t get in contact with you right away as they will know you are working to get them home to safety as quickly as possible.
4. Pack an Emergency Kit for Each of Your Children
At the school where I work, we keep our own emergency supply and First Aid kits on site but we also ask that parents pack a Ziplock-sized emergency pack for each of their children. We keep these together in our classroom emergency kit.
In each kit, parents are asked to pack a snack, a juice box, a game and a letter from them to their child. This kit is meant to help comfort children in the case of an emergency.
Parents should also provide teachers with Epipens, prescription medications and any other specialized medical supplies and information for each of their children. Children should also know how to safely take or self-administer their medications and how to access them if for some reason a teacher is unable or unavailable to help them (like if they are unconscious, etc.).
5. Enroll Your Children in a First Aid Course
If you really want to empower your kids to take care of themselves and each other in an emergency (either at home or at school), I highly recommend enrolling them in a First Aid course.
Some schools offer First Aid programs as part of Phys Ed. at a certain age. But even if they do get this training at school, if you can enroll them in a private course it certainly doesn’t hurt them to get more practice.
An important part of self-reliance and emergency preparedness is to prepare to care for yourself in any situation and not rely on others to take care of you. While school staff are responsible for your children while they are at school, you just never know what could happen that could render staff unable to help or reach your child in an emergency. Also, if many people are injured, it could take a while for your child to get help.
Knowing First Aid also empowers your children to care for their peers should they need medical help. There’s really no downside. Check Google or local listings to find a First Aid course near you.
From one parent to another…
At the end of the day, it’s your responsibility as a parent to help prepare your kids for an emergency at school, at home, at daycare or anywhere else. As teachers, we do our best to prepare kids with regular drills and conversations at school. But as a parent, you have a special opportunity to prepare them much more thoroughly and frequently than teachers do with limited time and lots of other students and distractions to attend to.
As we head into the start of another school year, my best advice is not to wait to prepare your kids for an emergency. We are learning time and time again, you just never know when one might happen.
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Okay, I’m just gonna come out and say it: I’m a total sucker for pumpkin spice.
Call me #basic, but it’s the truth.
In fact, I’m all about everything fall: the colours, the coziness, the sweater weather, and yes, pumpkins and pumpkin spice. There’s just something comforting and nostalgic about it; Like grandma’s kitchen or the warm scent of pumpkin pie that wafts from the table at holiday dinners with family and friends.
What I’m NOT all about are the chemical preservatives and lab-created “natural flavours” in most store-bought and coffee shop pumpkin spice syrups and lattes. Not to mention, I don’t exactly love paying $5.00 or more for a single drink at a cafe.
This homemade pumpkin spice syrup, made with REAL pumpkin and spices and NO added preservatives solves all of these problems... It’s 100% natural and costs just pennies per batch. (And trust me when I say it rivals even the famed Starbucks #PSL when added to a homemade latte).
You definitely want to try this at home this pumpkin spice season. Er, I mean this fall 😉
Click the link in my bio @thehouseandhomestead for the full recipe or go to https://thehouseandhomestead.com/homemade-pumpkin-spice-syrup/
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#pumpkinspice #pslseason #pumpkinseason #homemade #fallvibes #flavorsoffall #homesteadkitchen
As much as I'm honestly kinda over the garden by this time of year and ready to tuck in indoors and rest for a while, I know that the effort I put into my garden in the fall will pay a huge return come next spring and summer when we're ready to plant and then harvest our next round of crops.
For one, fall is the best time to amend and enrich your soil, so adding compost or manure or some sort of organic matter is pretty crucial this time of year.
Also, you should always cover your soil, especially over the winter months when soil is more likely to erode and nutrients can get washed away. A cover crop or a thick layer of mulch is a good idea to help keep your soil protected and intact.
And of course, garlic should be planted in the fall before your first frost to ensure huge bulbs next summer. Us homesteaders always have to be thinking ahead a few seasons!
I'm taking you into our garden as we're tearing it down and planting out our garlic. I'll show you our fall gardening routine and I'll walk you through planting garlic so you can start growing it at home too! (It's honesty the easiest, most rewarding crop that we grow).
It's time for the grand finale in the garden this year as we tear it down and prep it for next spring. Will you join me for one last hurrah?
Link in bio @thehouseandhomestead or go to https://youtu.be/llNFlxxUV-I
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#fallgardening #garlic #healthysoil #homesteadersofinstagram #humanswhogrowfood
First batch of homemade candles for the season. It’s a cold, grey day and we’re about to light the woodstove for the first time this season too. Now I have some homemade spice-scented candles to go with the cozy vibe:)
I LOVE candles, but good ones are pretty expensive to buy. However, since I started making candles myself I haven’t bought a single one from the store and I’ve probably saved myself hundreds of dollars.
I make at least a batch or two (or three) of these scented soy wax candles every year around this time. I burn a bunch of them myself over the winter and we gift them for Christmas. I’ve even sold them for upwards of $15 a piece!
If you want an easy and rewarding DIY project to get into as we head into fall and winter, homemade candles is your answer.
Click the link in my bio @thehouseandhomestead or go to https://thehouseandhomestead.com/homemade-soy-candles-essential-oils to learn how to make them yourself!
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#homemade #handmade #candles #diy
Sometimes I question why I do what I do. Why do I take on so much? Why do I bother making everything from scratch and growing a garden and preserving food when I could just as well buy it from the store and save myself a ton of time and effort?
Why am I working hard to build a business out of my passion when I could just as easily go to work for a pay check and just enjoy homesteading as a hobby on the side?
Why do I choose to do everything the hard way and see against the grain? Why not just go with the flow and hope for the best?
I can’t say for sure that I would have chosen to follow all the same paths that I’ve gone down over the past few years had I not become a mother, but what I 𝘥𝘰 know for sure is that my beautiful daughter is worth every ounce of hard work; every dollar I’ve invested in our future goals and dreams; every late night work fest and canning session; every seed planted and loaf of bread baked.
She’s worth it because I want to give her the best I can in life. I want her to eat good food and live a long and healthy life. I want to teach her how to be self-sufficient so that she has the skills she needs no matter what kind of world awaits her in the future. And I want to show her that anything is possible and any dream is worth pursuing, even if the work that it takes to achieve it is harder than following the herd and taking the road of least resistance.
This little human right here: this is my why. This girl and her goofy smile make everything worthwhile ❤️
What (or who?) is your why?
This growing season has seriously been the strangest I’ve experienced so far. Summer came so late we thought it wasn’t gonna come at all. Our greens and peas and spring crops produced for weeks longer then they normally do as we waited FOREVER for our tomatoes and peppers and summer crops to grow and ripen.
Now that we’re into October, we’re having a warm spell and the garden is acting like it’s summer! The tomatoes are all just starting to turn red, the cucumbers and zucchini are still givin’er, the pumpkins and squash are having another growth spurt, and now the green beans are starting on round two after about a month of dormancy!
We’re supposed to be going fishing tomorrow, and I’m wondering if the salmon are a little late this year too...
If there’s one thing 2020 has taught us all it’s that nothing is ever certain. So even though I’m sort of ready to be done with the garden already, I’m reminded of how fortunate we are to have such abundance come from our property and our surrounding environment; To have so much when so many have so little; To live in such a beautiful, bountiful corner of the world surrounded by a kind-hearted community that values sustainability and self-sufficiency like we do.
I love making plans for the future, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without some pretty serious planning. But sometimes you’ve just gotta go with the flow and trust that even when things don’t work out exactly as you’d imagined, they work out exactly as they should.
I wasn’t expecting to still be busy with the summer garden in October, but I have to say, this year, no matter how ready to be done with it I might feel some days, I’m more grateful than ever for everything we’ve been blessed with.
What are you feeling grateful for this year? It’s Thanksgiving next weekend here in Canada, so we’ll be talking a lot about gratefulness this week in our house 🙏
Can you imagine how bland and boring our food (and life) would be without spices??
Seriously! We take them for granted nowadays because they’re so readily available in our pantries and on grocery store shelves. But for thousands of years throughout history, spices were coveted, revered and hard to get. For around 1,500 years, spices travelled overland on camelback and horseback on the Silk Road from China to the west. And then, just over 500 years ago, explorers set out into the unknown to find a maritime trading route, and one of those explorers just so happened to stumble on the Americas along the way, essentially shaping history and the modern world as we know it.
But besides history and geography, the science behind spices is just as fascinating. Their culinary and medicinal uses have had a huge impact on the world and on the dishes we enjoy on a regular basis today. Oh, and did you know that, scientifically speaking, it’s actually possible to GROW even the most “exotic” spices at home, right here in North America??
I LOVE to geek out on this sort of stuff, so doing the research for the latest issue of Modern Homesteading Magazine was actually so much fun. (If you hadn’t guessed, this issue is all about spices!!)
I’d love to tell you so much more right here, but I’m a bit limited on space! However, you can read more about the fascinating story of spices, their culinary and medicinal uses, how to put them to use in your kitchen and yes, even how to grow them at home in the October issue.
So if you’re already subscribed, be sure to check your inbox for the latest issue (it came out yesterday). And if you’re NOT yet subscribed, then head on over and click the link in my bio @thehouseandhomestead to subscribe for FREE, and get the latest issue delivered straight to your inbox!
Wishing you a rich, flavourful fall season full of spice, pumpkin and otherwise;)
The weather this summer has been as unpredictable as 2020 itself. The cool, grey, wet start to the summer meant that our sun-loving crops got a slow start in the garden, and that’s led to an unprecedented number of green tomatoes at the end of the season.
You’ve probably heard me complaining about our green tomato “problem” all summer. We do, after all, have great fruit set and TONS of tomatoes on our plants. They’re just almost all green!!!
While I do love me some green tomatoes (green tomato relish is my FAVE and fermented green tomatoes and hot peppers are out of this world), I refuse to give up on luscious, red, homemade tomato sauce and salsa just yet. I refuse to accept that they’re all just green and that’s just the way it is! So I’m taking matters into my own hands and ripening them myself.
Luckily the process of ripening green tomatoes indoors is ridiculously easy, so if you’ve got more green tomatoes than you know what to do with too, or you’re just keen to get another batch of sauce on your pantry shelves, I’m sharing this simple trick with you today for ripening green tomatoes that has stood the test of time (for real... my great grandmother used to do this).
Link in bio @thehouseandhomestead or go to https://thehouseandhomestead.com/how-to-ripen-green-tomatoes-indoors/ to learn this simple hack!
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Okay, I MAY have totally messed up a batch of blackberry jam today, but check out this carrot! Thing’s almost as thick as my forearm and as long as my face! (Is that an accurate way to measure things?)🤷🏻♀️
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September is such an odd time of year. It’s the time of year when we tend to find ourselves with a foot in two worlds: A transition season, if you will.
In the garden, some plants are dead or dying. There’s brown, crispy stems, dried pea pods bursting with next year’s seeds and a natural layer of mulch in the form of fallen leaves. But at the same time there’s still so much life. So much greenery and colour. So much of summer still left.
Indoors we’re busy putting up the harvest, stocking our shelves with jars of colourful food, baskets of cured onions and garlic, dried herbs hanging everywhere and crocks of fermenting foods on every countertop. But while we’re still dealing with the summer bounty, fall has begun, which means we’re back to schedules and routines and, for those of us with kids, school.
But this year our return to our “normal” fall routines is anything but. For many families, there is no return to school. Not in the traditional sense anyway. Instead, more families than ever before have found themselves educating their children at home for the first time, whether by force or by choice. And trying to balance all of the usual September tasks with navigating full-time homeschooling can feel daunting, to say the least.
I know we can all use as much help and expert advice as we can get at this time, so I’m honoured to have Ginny Aaron, a full-time homeschooling, homesteading mom of three sharing her wisdom on the blog this week. She’s generously shared her best tips for incorporating homeschooling with your existing routine and finding the teachable moments in the every day so that you don’t need to uproot your life or find another 7 hours in your day to recreate a classroom environment at home.
I just love Ginny’s approach to homeschooling and if you’re anything like me, I think you will too. You can check out her full post by clicking the link in my bio or go to https://thehouseandhomestead.com/homeschooling-on-the-homestead/
It’s also Ginny's first time guest posting so be sure to leave a comment while you’re there and let us know what school looks like for your family this year.
Link in bio @thehouseandhomestead
I’ve been feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders lately. Between balancing work and the garden and all of the canning and preserving tasks this time of year, I’ve already got enough on my plate. Add a string of social commitments, back-to-school and extracurricular activities, and I’m definitely feeling the pressure, as I usually do this time of year.
But lump on a pandemic, worsening political tensions, division and civil unrest, intensifying environmental disasters (we’re currently socked in with smoke from the California wildfires), and it all just becomes too much to bear some days.
I know I’m far from the only one who’s feeling this way. And yet, we all have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep going even when we’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed and burnt out. Even when the present is frightening and the future is uncertain.
I’ve developed some strategies over the past few years that have helped me keep moving forward and get things done even when I’m feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, and I want to share them with others who need help coping with stress and overwhelm right now too.
You can check out my list of 10 tips for managing stress and overwhelm on the homestead (and in life!) by clicking the link in my bio @thehouseandhomestead and then clicking the link to the full blog post at the top.
You can also grab my free time management planner by clicking the link in my bio and then clicking on “Free Resource Library,” (find it under “Homesteading & Self-Sufficiency Resources” in the library).
No matter what you’re struggling with right now, I hope some of these tips help keep you navigate these extra stressful times and stay focused and moving forward with your to-do list, as well as with your big goals and dreams. But most of all, I hope it reminds you that if you are struggling and feeling overwhelmed right now, you’re not alone.
Link in bio @thehouseandhomestead to read more.
I don’t think I have a jar big enough for this pickling cucumber 🥒
What do you do with the huge pickling cukes that inevitably get missed in the garden??
Please leave suggestions below! I’ve got two of ‘em! 😂
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#humanswhogrowfood #homesteadersofinstagram #mypickleisbiggerthanyours
Late summer is truly the time of abundance (and by far the busiest time of year for us).
We’ve got so much food that’s ripe for the picking in our own garden, plus baskets full of produce that we purchase locally when it’s in season and preserve for the winter.
Between harvesting and preserving (and trying my best to document it all for you along the way), there’s little time for much else in August.
We’re busy sweating in the garden and the kitchen, working around the clock to preserve all of the fruits (and vegetables) of summer so that come winter we hunker down and relax knowing we’ve got a pantry full of food to sustain us.
While there have been more times than I like to admit when I’ve asked myself why we do this when we could be at the beach or floating down the river like everyone else, come winter I am ALWAYS grateful for the time and energy we invested in the spring, summer and fall to grow and preserve all of the food that lines our pantry shelves.
With everything that 2020 has brought so far (and more uncertainty to come), this year I’m feeling grateful even in the thick of it; Even while I’m sweating and pulling late night canning sessions and constantly scraping dirt out from under my nails. This year it’s more apparent than ever how much growing and preserving our own food is worth the time and effort that it takes.
If you feel the same way and you’re looking to get even better at gardening, preserving and homesteading in general, or maybe you’re finally ready to start living a more sustainable lifestyle where YOU have control over your food supply, I highly encourage you to check out the Gardening & Sustainable Living Bundle (link in bio @thehouseandhomestead). It’s packed with almost $600 worth of resources designed to help you take control of your food security and live a more self-sufficient life, and it’s on sale today only for just $19.99!
If you ask me, we would all be wise to invest in our own food security as we head into fall and winter 2020, so click the link in my bio @thehouseandhomestead to grab your bundle now. The sale ends tonight at midnight so don’t wait!!
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