A Lesson on Earthquake for a 5 Years Old
A Lesson on Earthquake for a 5 Years Old
My grandnephew came with his grandpa and grandma from Sydney to stay with us in Melbourne for a few days.
He is just over 5 years old, very intelligent and inquisitive. He likes to see and feed my gold fish in the pond.
On the day he arrived, he observed the crack in our kitchen ceiling, and was very persistent to find out why it was there.
Grandaunt (my wife) told him that there was an earthquake (earth tremor) in Melbourne sometime ago that caused the crack. Grandaunt also showed him another crack in the laundry. However, grandaunt could not satisfy his curiosity nor explained in simple terms what earthquake is.
That's how I was assigned the task to explain what earthquake is and the trail of disasters could leave behind after an earthquake.
I Chromecast some YouTube videos about earthquake from my iPad to the television.
To explain earthquake, he needs to understand the some basic terms such as world, Earth, globe, and country. He has a globe at home, and he can name some countries, including Australia, China, and India.
Then I proceed to explain that he lives on planet Earth, and the hard surface of the Earth is known as crust.
I ask him to look out of different windows and describe what he sees on the surface. I highlight that the surface is made out of different patches of things and plants.
He can imagine each patch is kown as a plate. Since the plates are not glued together, the joints that can be seen are known as faults.
Unlike different sections of the plants which can grow into another without causing trouble, the Earth plates can move and crash into other plates. When a crash happens, and it creates an Earthquake.
The severity (how disastrous) of the earthquake depends how hard the plates crash with one another. I showed my grandnephew the pressure pushes up parts of the crust causing a lot of damage including the collapse of houses, loss of power, destruction of roads, death of humans and animals.
The people on the streets have to hold on to something, some cars and buses stopped in the street and appeared to be dancing sideway, things in supermarket shelves are thrown everywhere onto the floor, things and paper in an office or home slide off the table and fall onto the ground.
When there is no electricity, it is dangerous to move around at night, and hospital cannot help others to get well.
Although the lesson is on Earthquake, I take the opportunity to show some video clips on recent bushfires. I make sure he understand not to play with fire, and not to allow his friends to play with it, too.
Should he notice a fire starts to burn something abnormally, he has to inform an adult nearby, or call 000, asks for fire engine, and clearly states his home address, or the address where the fire is.
I resume my lesson on earthquake. I explain that if an earthquake happens in an an ocean, it can create big waves. These waves are known as Tsunami. it can be as high as a ten-storey building, and moves towards the shore, damaging houses, flooding the streets, people and cars floating on top, bringing down power line and no electricity. Even ambulance cannot drive around to rescue people.
By now, he has enough for the day. There will be a revision on the spelling of some of terms used. He likes to have a lesson on volcanoes and mountains.
Why not use my step-by-step material and teach your 5 years old or young students?
Thank you for reading.
On the day he arrived, he observed the crack in our kitchen ceiling, and was very persistent to find out why it was there.
Grandaunt (my wife) told him that there was an earthquake (earth tremor) in Melbourne sometime ago that caused the crack. Grandaunt also showed him another crack in the laundry. However, grandaunt could not satisfy his curiosity nor explained in simple terms what earthquake is.
That's how I was assigned the task to explain what earthquake is and the trail of disasters could leave behind after an earthquake.
I Chromecast some YouTube videos about earthquake from my iPad to the television.
To explain earthquake, he needs to understand the some basic terms such as world, Earth, globe, and country. He has a globe at home, and he can name some countries, including Australia, China, and India.
Then I proceed to explain that he lives on planet Earth, and the hard surface of the Earth is known as crust.
I ask him to look out of different windows and describe what he sees on the surface. I highlight that the surface is made out of different patches of things and plants.
He can imagine each patch is kown as a plate. Since the plates are not glued together, the joints that can be seen are known as faults.
Unlike different sections of the plants which can grow into another without causing trouble, the Earth plates can move and crash into other plates. When a crash happens, and it creates an Earthquake.
The severity (how disastrous) of the earthquake depends how hard the plates crash with one another. I showed my grandnephew the pressure pushes up parts of the crust causing a lot of damage including the collapse of houses, loss of power, destruction of roads, death of humans and animals.
The people on the streets have to hold on to something, some cars and buses stopped in the street and appeared to be dancing sideway, things in supermarket shelves are thrown everywhere onto the floor, things and paper in an office or home slide off the table and fall onto the ground.
When there is no electricity, it is dangerous to move around at night, and hospital cannot help others to get well.
Although the lesson is on Earthquake, I take the opportunity to show some video clips on recent bushfires. I make sure he understand not to play with fire, and not to allow his friends to play with it, too.
Should he notice a fire starts to burn something abnormally, he has to inform an adult nearby, or call 000, asks for fire engine, and clearly states his home address, or the address where the fire is.
I resume my lesson on earthquake. I explain that if an earthquake happens in an an ocean, it can create big waves. These waves are known as Tsunami. it can be as high as a ten-storey building, and moves towards the shore, damaging houses, flooding the streets, people and cars floating on top, bringing down power line and no electricity. Even ambulance cannot drive around to rescue people.
By now, he has enough for the day. There will be a revision on the spelling of some of terms used. He likes to have a lesson on volcanoes and mountains.
Why not use my step-by-step material and teach your 5 years old or young students?
Thank you for reading.
