How you can make your fire safety week a fun and engaging experience!
In celebration of Fire Safety Week, we spent time off and on all throughout the week exploring fire safety week from all different interesting and fun angles.  Our local fire department came out and shared some terrific posters and information on fire prevention and how to stay safe during a fire emergency and of course, the children got a tour of the big fire engine, too!
Providing a Real-World Context
The fire department came out at the end of the week which was one of the highlights of our week. After they came last year, I realized I could be doing so much more with fire safety week than I had done last year so I was inspired to really give more of my time and attention to planning a fun and interesting week for the kids to enjoy…
Of course, it doesn’t have to be Fire Safety Week, to explore fire safety. You can talk about this topic anytime throughout the school year and the children will love it but I was glad I set this week aside and actually managed to even get the fire department on the schedule well before school started. I tend to put too many things off until last minute but not this time!…
Exploring Fire Safety through Books
We explored fire safety week in a variety of ways and I tried to keep everything we explored meaningful and interesting – not just cute. Â We read several books that I thought the children would enjoy and relate well to. Â One of the books we read was “Clifford the Firehouse Dog.” In this short but fun book, Clifford demonstrates the concept of “Stop, Drop, and Roll!” Â Of course, Clifford was so big that he left quite the path of destruction during his roll…
Practicing Fire Safety
After reading the book, we did our own short practice of “Stop, Drop, and Roll!” The children reviewed the words with me and as they did, they also demonstrated the process…
And much like Clifford the Dog, our “Stop, Drop, and Roll” was a little crazy too…
We took a chance and tried the “Stop, Drop, and Roll” process a couple of times. The first time, I said the words aloud while pointing at each word.  The second time, I told the children I was only going to point to each word and they had to think in their mind what each word was by remembering the order of the words. The children did a great job and they had fun practicing this simple exercise in fire safety…
Fire Safety Concepts through Science
Through out the week, we discovered other ways fire can be put out such as using a fire extinguisher (which I shared in my previous post). We also did this simple science experiment (with my Prekindergarten age children only) using a candle and a tea bag. The children observed at a safe distance which material burned quickly and which burned slowly and the experiment led to further discussion on why we should never, ever go near a fire unless we are with a grown up…
We talked about why we should never play with matches, lighters, or other things that may start a fire. We didn’t go into extreme details but we did explore just enough that the kids easily got the idea that safety and good decision-making really does matter. Most of the children in my class already had quite a strong understanding of fire safety and all of the children were extremely interested and insightful in our discussions…
Encouraging Discussion and Reflection
During our discussion on “Stop, Drop, and Roll” the children also asked really good questions such as “Why do we need to stop, drop and roll?” “Won’t that make the fire spread all over us?”  I was surprised at how good their questions were and we discussed the questions until the children seemed have a good grasp on why we would stop, drop, and roll. We added our Clifford book to the classroom book shelf for the children to read throughout the week too…
Sharing our Knowledge
So when Firefighter Todd came to preschool and asked the children to chant “Stop, Drop, and Roll” with him, the children were up for the challenge and excited to chant along…
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