Fun With Fire Safety

Since we planned a fall nature hike last week, I decided to postpone our fire safety fun until this week. It was actually pretty good because I was able to incorporate our "orange" with it.

The first thing we did on Tuesday was to introduce the smoke alarm and fire extinguisher. I have a smoke detector that I bring to opening with me and ask the children if they know what it is; some do and some don't. Then comes the tricky part. I push the button so that they can hear what the alarm sounds like. Some of them do NOT like this at all, but I feel it's important for them to hear how loud it would sound and what type of sound it makes.

We then talked about what we should do if we hear the smoke detector. Their response, "Get out!" (They're so smart!) This is when we do our fire escape plan. Again, another tricky aspect. I have had a few children over the years actually think we were escaping a real fire and became frightened. I try to make sure they understand what we are doing, but there are usually a few that are still skeptical. Especially when we are traveling through parts of the church we have never been to before--we have lots of ways to escape.

After, our fire escape drills we have a scavenger hunt. We travel through the church complex looking for smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. This is fun. They get so excited when they find one.

Our Pre-K teacher also came up with a fun water table activity. She made flames out of foam and taped them in the water table. The children used spray bottles to put the flames out with water.

The activity I did this week incorporated our color orange. I gave the children some paper and put some yellow and red paint on it and let them create some orange flames finger paint style. Then on Thursday we added our shape fire truck.

Gluing on our fire truck was our first experience with something other than a glue stick--sorry mom and dad. I hope their pictures have dried.

I am lucky enough to have a couple of parents from the local fire department in my class this year. They are going to bring an ambulance and fire gear to the school the last week of October. They are also going to allow the children to get up close and personal to it so that they can be comfortable and unafraid--I thank them tremendously.