Last summer I spent a good 90 minutes crafting and giving a demonstration – using 10 pints of water, red food coloring, matchbox cards, and a Red Cross testing facility built out of Legos – that I hoped would provide my then-six-year-old son with a comprehensive understanding of the blood donation process. The demonstration worked, but if I had it to do over again (and I do, now that my five-year-old daughter has started asking about blood donation), I might opt for a simpler course of action.
Luckily for me, I came across this fantastic Red Cross graphic that I think will do the trick.
I love this graphic for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the nurse looks exactly like my mom when she first became a nurse in the mid 1970’s (yes, nurses used to wear those caps). Oh, and I think the snack looks delicious. I may start a campaign to push for the Red Cross to serve croissants at blood drives.
The process is simple, and the end result is lives saved. Maybe that’s all our kiddos – at least as elementary schoolers – really need to know.