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Earthquake!
At Montessori Johnsonville we take the children's safety seriously. We have a lot of drill practices - fire drills, earthquake drills, even practices in what we do if it gets really windy. (We do live in Johnsonville after all). We do these drills every month or two, and sometimes the children even instigate them.
On Thursday 11 August 2023 at 11.53 am we had a real earthquake. Rachel our Centre Manager quickly called out "Earthquake, drop everyone" and the children all instantly dropped to the floor. A couple of children went under the table and held on to the legs, and even a brand new child that has only been with us for 2 days watched the other children and then was supported to curl up on the floor by a teacher nearby.
Afterwards we had a de-brief. We had a mat-time and talked about why the earth shakes and what we can do to keep ourselves safe. We talked about all the things in our classroom that are safe - how the shelves are all screwed to the wall, the fish tank is secured to the wall, all the heavy things are close to the ground and even how the stereo is blu-tacked to the shelf. The children then went around the classroom to double check everything and that everything was put back in the right place.
Finally, all the children went around and asked each other if they were OK. What a connection they have with each other.