Fire Safety Week is in October. This is an excellent theme for early childhood classrooms.
It is a good idea to have the local fire department visit school to talk about fire safety and bring a fire engine and ambulance. The students love sitting in the trucks and seeing the firefighters in uniform. This eases a lot of fears young children have of emergency personnel in uniforms.
Practice calling 911. If there are any First Responders as parents in the class, ask if you can call their cell phone number pretending to have a fire emergency. The students can practice talking and answering questions from ‘real’ emergency First Responders and firefighters.
This is a good time for students to learn their addresses. Get the parents involved in this activity. Have them practice their home address with their child and say it back to the teacher in class. When students learn and say their addresses, send home a special reward paper with a house or phone on it telling parents that their child can recite their address.
This is a good time to discuss safe and unsafe items at home. Have students list things that are safe to touch and things that are not safe to touch and play with. Also talk about camping and campfires and how to make the fire is completely out before leaving the campsite.
Have students draw a fire escape plan of the school and their home. They can dictate to the teacher blueprints of their homes. She can draw each room as the child says and draw arrows for a fire escape plan to get out of their houses in case of fire.
Have a practice fire drill. Say ‘fire drill’ and all the students can line up quickly and exit the building. Have multiple ways to exit: back door, front door, side door. Be sure to time the exit procedure and try to get faster and more orderly with each drill.
Practice Stop, Drop, and Roll. Make sure students know to Go Low if they see or smell smoke. If fire gets on their clothes, stop drop and roll. Make sure to teach them to feel the door before opening it. If it is hot, they need to use another door.
Paint with fire. Use orange, yellow, and red paint and allow the students to do free art to paint a picture of their choice.
Make an art project of a house on fire. Glue strips of orange, yellow, and red paper on a house drawn on another piece of paper.
A good homework assignment for Fire Safety week: Send home a paper for students to find 2 ways out of their houses. Determine a meeting place once they escape their house. Write down the emergency phone number to call in case of an emergency.
