Today is the day we tell the kids that while school is a safe place, sometimes, there are scary people who try to hurt you. I have to give them the hard, sad truth that there are people with guns who make some sad choices to hurt others. We walk through all our procedures of what to do during a lockdown. We tell them where to hide. We tell them not to open the door, even if someone says "It's the police!" We tell them to listen for not one adult, but two adults, to announce that it is safe to exit classrooms. It's a pretty REAL conversation, and it breaks my heart.
However, it's better to be prepared and deal with a tough conversation than to be sensitive and unprepared! Here's a quick worksheet I developed to help the kids process all the things we talked about. We have special safety latches on our doors, so I just hand drew in our locks on one of the worksheets. I left that space blank, so you can draw in whichever lock you classroom has.
I'm currently working on a class reader about lockdowns to assist in the tricky conversation! Stay tuned!
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