One of my goals for teaching my kids anatomy is teaching first aid to them. I want them to have at least a passing idea of what to do if someone they know is seriously hurt. I have to admit part of this is because my kids are quite prone to BEING the one seriously hurt.
Supplies needed to teach first aid to kids
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red marker, clean Washcloths
What I did to teach first aid to my kids
I figured I’d add in that “my kids” because Princess got a first aid lesson with American Heritage Girls that was still hands on, but didn’t involve markers.
1. Have your child draw a major wound somewhere on their body. Batman of course immediately drew one on his head in the exact same place he has at least two scars.
2. Let them seriously ham it up as they act horribly wounded. If this was a video you would hear the cries of pain coming from your speakers.
3. The person aiding them comes up and assesses the injury with a few questions. Then starts to clean the wound. Notice as you’re doing so the red marker is coming off, exxxxcelleeent, just as you wanted it to happen. The kids won’t be running around all day covered in red. Make sure to talk about the importance of wearing gloves in case the wounded person is infected and to help keep the wound more clean. The kids then remember we have yarn gloves to wear….
4. Apply pressure to the wound to slow bleeding, if possible elevate the wound to slow blood flow to the wound.
4b. Tickle your patient as the dog tries to lick him to death. I’m sure that’s part of all major treatment plans.
5. Decide what treatment is needed. Does the person need to go to the ER? Do you need to give them medicine? What type of bandage can you use?
*As a side note, if you ever have to go to the ER and decide to call your mother, make sure to sound properly panicked, otherwise she might not believe you are taking your son to the ER, and tell you she doesn’t have time to get you food because she is working. And yes I still tease my Mom about this to this day, 3 years later. Because she NEEDS to be teased about this. NEEDS, did you hear that?
6. Apply the bandage to the wound. For this particular activity the kids all decided they needed plain old band-aids. Mainly because they like putting them on, that’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.
Other lessons on the Circulatory System
Other lessons on First Aid
Quick tip for owies (way back in my first year of blogging)
I bet they had a lot of fun with this!
Oh my yes! It was a blast.
Great job!! Wonderful hands on lesson! Sammy would think this is fun. How sad is this.. I can’t use Band-Aids (they only make latex bandages). Looks like you guys had fun!
Can you use the cloth ones? I’ve gotten those from time to time and like them a bit more (but they cost more).
All of the band-aid brand ones at Target are not Latex free. Maybe they have some that are but I have never seen any and I have certainly looked for them!
Judging from the scrape on Princess’ arm (unless of course that was marker) in the first picture – I’m thinking you might not have needed the markers 🙂
The scrape might be marker on her arm. I know she drew the most gigantic scrape on her arm, but I think she has a real one on her elbow. They’re all skinned elbows and knees right now.
Looks like your kids loved this!
When I was 10 I broke my hand, but I was so mellow about it that my parents didn’t realize it was actually broken for several days. I gave them a hard time about that for years.
They really did! They’ve been loving anatomy this year.
Oh wow, my brother had a similar problem when he broke his finger, my Dad blew it off, until almost a week or two later and his finger was turning all sorts of horrible colors, so my Mom took him in. It was exciting.
This is such an important lesson! I am considering starting a new board of “lifeskills” for posts like that! They had fun, but they also learned something very important.
Oh, that’s a good idea! I’ve got a general parenting board that I put a lot of the life-skills types of things in, but a specific board could be a good idea.