This week I was in a kindergarten classroom and we had a lock down to practice. For those of that aren't familiar with this one would call a lock down at a school if an intruder entered the school and you needed to not run into them... or even if no one knew who it was and wanted to keep everyone safe. I've never actually been to a school where we have actually had a lock down (and I'm quite thankful for that).
During a lock down the typical procedure is to lock the classroom door, turn out the lights, and close the blinds. All the students sit against the wall that the door is on (typically).
So anyways, I knew about the lock down ahead of time and was instructed that I could tell the class about it because they were in kindergarten. So we went over what we would do and that it was very important to sit quietly because if we were hiding and the person in the hallway could hear us there would be no point in hiding at all. I told them the principal might come and check to make sure the door was locked and it would likely only last a few minutes. They got a little worried about it but I just told them that we practice fire drills and none of us have been at a school where a fire has happened and so we have to practice this too... just to be safe.
Anyways, when all was said and done they did an alright job. Some started to make noises and some started to hold back laughter (unsuccessfully) but over all it was okay. Then one little boy comes up to me and says "Ms. Penner, do we practice lock downs in case a raccoon gets into the school?" I thought about it for half a minute and decided that we might have a lock down if a raccoon was on the loose inside the school... although we likely wouldn't need to hide from it... just stay in the classroom and not let it in! He then asked if we would do one if a bug got in... we decided probably not... because bugs get in all the time and don't pose as much as a threat.
The things kindergarten's come up with!
