Fire Safety and Prevention

October is Fire Prevention Month, and I thought it would be a good idea to take a break from our regular curriculum for the day and do a lesson on fire safety. We talked about the smoke detectors and also about what to do if there is ever a fire in the house - our escape routes and our meeting place outside. We talked about Stop, Drop, and Roll and how we should NEVER play with matches or lighters.

I found a number of fun fire-themed activities online to do with the kids and feel like they now have a good understanding of fire safety. Hopefully we will never encounter the need to put our lessons into practice, but as the old adage goes, "better safe than sorry"!

Yesterday at our library's story hour, they read books and talked about fire safety. Then they made this dalmatian by dipping their thumbs into black paint.

For our snack, we constructed houses out of pretzels, then sprinkled on shredded cheese for the fire. The kids had fun putting out the fire by eating it!

The kids wore their fire hats while coloring some pages.

I found this great YouTube video called Fire Truck by Ivan Ulz. It's a sing and read storybook and my kids loved it so much, we watched it 3 times. It was a fun video, but now the song has been stuck in our heads all day.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emv-Yn6g1r4)

I found this idea online to demonstrate Stop, Drop, and Roll, but I can't remember what site the idea came from. I cut strips of red paper and taped them to the back of the kids' clothes. The strips of paper also had a piece of tape rolled and attached to the outside of it as well. The kids had to Stop, Drop, and Roll in order to put the "fire" that was on their clothing out.

Madison looks at her results - the fire was removed from her clothing. See the "fire" pieces on the floor?

Noah gives it a try

and also has success!

I found this great fire safety booklet online and printed it off. The kids and I went through each of the pages and discussed the topics presented. I would recommend this for a simple, kid-friendly way to approach fire safety!
(found on http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/fr/download/firesafetycoloringbook2004.pdf)

We read a couple books about firetrucks

A sight word activity - I printed off pictures of houses and flames that had various sight words printed on them. In order for Madison to "put out the fire", she had to read the words and remove the flame from the house.
(activity from http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/FireSightWordActivity.htm)

Noah was so intrigued with the activity...

...that he wanted to try it too. He got to remove the flame after repeating the sight word after me.

I found a clip art picture online of the interior of a house and printed it. Then I put drops of red and orange paint on the picture and had the kids spread the paint using a straw. It was a good lesson in teaching them how quickly and easily real fire can spread throughout the house.

Firetruck dot to dot
(worksheet from www.abcteach.com)

A trace and color firefighter page. Madison not only traced the firefighter, but she also added a hose, a burning building, and a firetruck to her picture.
(activity found on http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/FiremanTraceandColor.htm)

Fireman Domino Math
(worksheet from http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/FiremanDominoMathFun.htm)

A number-word match activity. Madison matched the number on the firetruck to the correct number word on the fire station.
(activity from http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/FireNumberWordMatch.htm)

A couple other things we did to follow the fire theme was all of us wore red shirts today, and we also had a "red lunch" consisting of hot dogs with red ketchup, leftover red chili, chips and red salsa, red apples, and red punch to drink.