Emergency Workers Unit Study and Activities

I thought we'd do a little unit on Policemen and Firemen for Ziggy's sake (he LOVES to pretend to be a policeman and fireman), and then it turned out there was a lot to learn about emergency workers and it wasn't such a little unit! We all enjoyed it. We had a section on Police, a section on Firefighters, and a section on EMTs and Paramedics.

Lots of video links for this unit, which will probably all be obsolete in a year or two, but oh well…

POLICE

Make a police badge

Make a traffic light (the boys liked this, for their toy cars)

Police Car Tour—pretty cool, but seeing the inside of a real police car on a field trip was even more cool!

We talked about all different kinds of police officers, so that included detectives and forensic officers too. Learning about fingerprinting, DNA, and Crime Scene Investigation was really interesting! Here's some information about fingerprints. And some ways to do your own. (Pictures of our attempts below.)

This identifying suspects activity was fun

Comfort dogs!

By far our favorite part of the police section was learning about K-9 units and how they train police dogs. This "K-9 Mounties" show about police dogs in Canada was the best and most in-depth. We watched 5 of 6 episodes (we knew we couldn't watch the one about dogs killed in the line of duty because it would make Ziggy too sad! He loves police dogs so much and wouldn't have been able to handle seeing them hurt.) Here's the first episode and you should be able to find the others from there. (The title of the show is just "K-9 Mounties.") We all love German Shepherds after watching these shows!

Here are some other police dog videos, here and here

These "Meet the Helpers" videos were annoying in some ways, but we still liked them (though the bigger kids enjoyed making fun of them a bit). Meet a police officer.

FIRE

Fire Truck tour (again, the real thing was better, but this is fun)

A day in the life of a firefighter documentary. The kids loved this one.

Police and Fire open house in some city

Fire Dept Open House (same event)

Same series as above—Meet a firefighter.

EMT

Meet a 911 Operator

This is a little paper model for an ambulance, police car, or fire truck you can build

Ambulance word search

Ambulance spot-the-difference

Ambulance Tour

Another Ambulance tour—this one was soooo funny. (In a bad way.) It was so bad it was good. Why did they make a talking ambulance? Why??

Handyman Hal was pretty funny too

(Here are the children improvising a stretcher to carry wounded Ziggy in)

Working on a detective/fingerprinting activity

Making Hardtack and Battlefield Bandages

We found lots of information about "A Day in the Life of a Civil War Soldier," and one thing that came up again and again was how miserable the typical soldier's diet was. We decided to try making hardtack, which was one of their staple foods. To be really authentic we would have used weevil-infested flour, but we decided not to. :)

Hardtack is basically just a mixture of flour and water, baked until it's hard and crunchy. We mixed 3/4 cup of water with 2 cups of flour. We also added a teaspoon of salt (only the lucky soldiers would have had that). Then we pressed the dough into a pan and poked it all over with a fork.

After baking it at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, we turned it over and baked it for about 20 more minutes. Then we let it cool.

Because we ate it fresh, our hardtack actually wasn't too bad. Hard and crunchy (see Abe trying to gnaw off a piece of it) but palatable. Sebby said he quite liked it. Abe said he'd rather have a banana split. :) I reminded the children that it would just get harder and harder the days after it was made.

Another activity we did was making bandages out of blankets and shirts. We talked about how often, there were no medical supplies nearby (or the medical supplies would run out with so many wounded), so soldiers would have to improvise bandages, tourniquets, etc., with whatever they had around. It's still a useful skill even today---once I fell and cut my knee open (to the bone---ew!) while running on the mountain, and my friend used her shirt to make a bandage while she ran ahead for help. 

Here are a couple of our attempts (Sebby's looks like a turban)

Finally, here are the three boys pretending to be prisoners of war in Andersonville prison camp. We read that it was so crowded that the soldiers had to sleep three to a bed, and if they wanted to turn over, one would call out, "All turn to the right!" or "All turn to the left!" so they could turn without falling off the bed. The boys thought that was really hilarious and immediately re-enacted it. :)

Infant CPR

This may have been our favorite day of the Babies Unit. Before we started the unit I was looking around online seeing if there were any Infant CPR courses we could use as a field trip. And it turns out none of them are for younger children (there were a couple for age 12 and up; most were for 15 and up!). I'm not really sure why they don't teach CPR to younger kids, honestly (seems like ages 8 and up would be totally capable!). It is not complicated at all, and maybe they think the kids will do it wrong, but it doesn't seem like it would be WORSE for them to do it wrong than for them not to do anything at all! And I guess younger kids may not be babysitting yet, but it's not like you could only use CPR if you were the sole caretaker. Anyway! In my search, I saw that the fire station had these "CPR anytime" kits you could buy. It's the CPR course on video, plus a little blow-up baby to practice on. The kits were $40, which I was prepared to spend because I thought it would be so useful. I've been in CPR classes lots of times and I've always planned to teach it to my kids.

But when I called about the kit, the secretary told me they had a bunch of last year's kits left over, and she could let me have one of those for free. Yay!

The video was great. One of those perky narrators and lots of chances to practice, plus zippy music to perform your chest compressions along with. :) It taught us how to treat a baby who is conscious but not breathing (Abe is doing back blows above; I don't know what Sebby is doing!) and then what to do if the baby loses consciousness. Malachi was able to remember and perform all the steps, and even Daisy got the general idea, though she wasn't really strong enough to do the chest compressions. The baby has a little clicker in its chest so you know where to put your fingers, and can hear a click when you are pushing hard enough. We loved our little inflatable baby.

After we were all pretty competent, we role-played a whole bunch of different situations. The children LOVED this. Their favorite part was when you are supposed to tell someone (if you aren't alone) in an urgent/serious voice, "You! Call 9-1-1 NOW!" and, the video instructed us "Say it like you mean it!" They loved that so much.

Sebby listening for breathing

Malachi blowing into baby's mouth and nose (you can see the chest rise and fall if you're doing it right)

Chest compressions for a conscious baby

Baby being carted off in a stretcher once the ambulance arrives

I felt like this was a really worthwhile activity, and it makes me feel like Abe and Seb will be more competent babysitters (they really did master the skills, I thought), not just for me, but when they babysit for other families. And I like the fact that we now have the DVD and the baby to practice on periodically, in case we forget what to do.