A "Family Home Evening" Activity - Emergency Preparedness

It's important to teach your kids about the possibility of an emergency. You don't want to scare them, obviously, but the more prepared they are, the safer they will be in the event that something happens.

Once a month, we are going to share with you an activity that will help you teach your families about the importance of food storage, or that will help prepare your family in the event of an emergency. This month's activity is about emergency preparedness, and it's a lot of fun.

First, though, I want you to imagine something for just a moment. Imagine that you are away on vacation, and while you are gone you see on TV that a tornado has hit your city. Later, you find out that your home is completely ruined. Sad, I know! Hopefully you have homeowners insurance! So, you call your insurance company and explain everything. They say that they need proof of your possessions before they replace them.

Ok, now comes the hard part. What did you even have in your home, and where can you find proof of that? It's going to be easy to list some everyday items, and the big things in your house are hard to forget about. But it's virtually impossible to remember everything you have in your home. You won't get everything back, that's a fact. Hopefully after this activity, though, you'll do a lot better than you would have otherwise.

All you need is:

• a camcorder (if you don't have one, borrow one!)
• a blank tape for the camcorder

It's simple - for your family activity, go through your house and videotape your possessions! Go from room to room and describe what you see. Your kids will love showing off their toys for the camera. You could even let the kids take turns being the videographer, if they're old enough.

My husband and I did this in our first home we lived in, just a couple months after we were married. Thankfully, we never had to use the tape for insurance purposes, but it's fun now to look back at where we lived and the things we had when we were first starting out (ok... most of it's still the same, but it will be REALLY fun to look back in 15-20 years!).

One last thought, and this is important.... DON'T store the only copy of this tape in your home! If something happens and your home is ruined, chances are the tape is gone, too. Make a copy of it and send it to a relative or friend who lives far enough away that whatever happened to your house (tornado, flood, earthquake, whatever) most likely didn't happen to theirs, too. Make sense?

Enjoy this activity! Get everyone in the family involved and have a good time. The prophet told us to be prepared, and by golly, we're gonna do it!