Kids Prepare America Idea Starters


The activities below are designed to get your students to take action when it comes to emergency and disaster preparedness — both with their own families and in the community. Review the ideas and adapt them for your class or community, or use them to develop your own ideas. Be sure to share your ideas with us and let us know how you helped to get your students and community ready for emergencies.

Create "Ready" Kits for the Community
As a community service project, have your students work together to assemble Ready-to-Go and Ready-to-Stay kits that can be donated to people in the community who may be in need of the supplies. Review the components of the kits as a class, and then host a fundraiser and use the proceeds to purchase the items needed for the kits. Or if possible, ask students and their families to donate these items as part of the project. This could be a school-wide project. Once the kits are assembled, contact your local fire department, emergency management office, or American Red Cross Chapter so they can help you deliver the kits to people who may need them.

Families Getting Ready
Host a family event and invite members of the community to speak to families about possible natural disasters that may affect your area, and provide additional tips on how families can prepare themselves for such things. Have your students create flyers to announce the event and program schedules to describe the guest speakers.

We're Ready
To help motivate students and families to prepare their kits and to develop communication plans, create a large bar graph for the cafeteria, library, or hallway. The name of each teacher in the school should appear on the horizontal axis. The vertical axis will count the students. Provide all the teachers in your school with copies of the Get Ready with Freddie! reproducible pages to send home. In addition, create a template for each family with check-off boxes and lines for the student and parent signatures.

The check-off list could be as simple as:
My family discussed emergency preparedness.
My family created a communication plan.
My family created (or started to organize) a Ready-to-Go kit.
My family created (or started to organize) a Ready-to-Stay kit.

When a student brings the paper back to school checked off and signed, he/she gets to add his/her name to the bar graph above his/her teacher name. The goal is to get every name on the graph. If requesting families to complete both kits and the communication plan may be too difficult, start with asking them to complete their communication plans.

Get the Word Out
Host a competition in which students create a small ad to encourage members of the community to develop a communication plan and create Ready-to-Go and Ready-to-Stay kits. To really get the word out, work with your principal to select a winning design and then have him/her submit it to the local newspaper to educate people about the project and prompt them to take action.

What Are Natural Disasters?
The topic of disaster can be frightening to students. To help them understand natural disasters, teach them what happens during different natural disasters. For example, explain how earthquakes happen and how the Earth is affected. Explain the three elements that react together in a forest fire – heat, fuel, and oxygen. Provide students with information and facts about how flooding occurs. Understanding the science behind these issues, coupled with knowing what people can do to prepare themselves if they do happen, may take the unknown out of the equation – something than can often increase fear. For information on natural disasters visit www.femakids.gov.

Assembly Time
To educate older children in your school, as well as the parents, host an assembly in which children perform skits about creating communication plans and developing Ready-to-Go and Ready-to-Stay kits. This will reinforce their understanding of the material as well as inform others.

In the News
Ask students from the older grades in your school to work on a project with your class in which your students explain communication plans and Ready-to-Go and Ready-to-Stay kits to the older children. Then the two groups can work together to create a school newsletter with key information about communication plans and a list of items for each kit that gets sent home to parents/guardians of both classes. Be sure to review for accuracy first.