US history: Civil War nursing

Did you know that prior to the Civil War nurses were unheard of?  It’s true, sadly many things came about because of the Civil War, it was the first modern war.

But, we wanted to concentrate on a positive thing first.  Before talking about things like trench warfare or the military things.

So, nursing.  We got together for co-op and talked about the dangers of germs and illness when you’ve been shot.  As we talked the kids illustrated some books about the Civil War from Teacher Express (many thanks to Phyllis from All Things Beautiful for constantly sharing her pictures of these books, I finally broke down and got them during one of their dollar deals).

After talking about the importance of cleanliness and not spreading germs everyone got gloves on in preparation for making their first aid kits.

Everyone took turns adding band aids, medical tape, alcohol pads, some cotton gauze, and some q-tips.

At first we thought this was a bit of a fluff lesson, but my kids have really remembered it, and have been running around in their plastic gloves lately taking being doctors and practicing on each other.  It’s been quite funny to see.

Now go check out other’s history or geography posts over at All Things Beautiful.