Prepare for Severe Winter Weather
Here are a few tips to prepare child care facilities:
- If you are planning to provide services, consider asking parents to provide extra supplies (diapers, infant formula/food, medication) and clothing for children.
- Trim back tree branches that may cause damage and/or power loss.
- Prepare for possible power loss. Batteries, working flash lights, blankets, etc.
- Fill up your gas tank.
- Write down your electric companies telephone number and consider saving their website to your mobile phone. This will make it easy to check on outage status if the power goes out. Many utilities now also have Twitter accounts, which can provide the most current information.
- Charge up your cell phone. Have a back up cell phone charger, either a battery-powered charger or a cell phone charger for the car.
- Go shopping – make sure you have food. Focus on food that you can eat without power.
- If you lose power, keep the refrigerator closed as much as possible.
- Review policies and procedures regarding communication with staff, children, and parents.
- Review policies and procedures governing suspending, delaying, relocating or canceling operations due to weather and power outages.
- Review the wind chill chart below.
- Check to make sure your furnace, or heating source, is in good operating order.
- Check smoke detectors to make sure they are operating properly and have good batteries.
- There are several resources to include children in your preparation efforts for severe weather.
Dress to Impress (and keep warm)!
Whenever children are outside, it is important that they are dressed for severe weather. Pay attention to the areas that can most easily be impacted by frost bite: hands, feet and the head. Also, make sure the clothing is dry and children are dressed in layers.
- Parents Magazine has more winter weather clothing-related tips.
- The American Academy of Pediatrics has a host of cold-weather information.
- Safe Kids has helpful tips on how to handle winter coats and car seats for infants and children.
This is a cold, but teachable moment!
Take this opportunity to teach children about cold weather safety. The below links offer free resources, lessons plans, and other fun activities.
- Teacher Vision has a list of 68 resources that you can download
- Hands On As We Grow has a list of 40 fun activities for toddlers
- Ready Wrigley from the CDC prepares for cold weather with this coloring and activity book
Other Tips for Winter Safety: