One of the challenges of being a parent is arming your child with the skills to handle the obstacles life presents. Teaching them how to use 911 in an emergency can be one of the simplest- and most important lessons you'll ever share!
It is our honor to partner with you, in empowering our children what to do in an emergency.
This week we focused on "FIRE SAFETY." We touched on who the "helpers" are in such an emergency, (who is there to help us stay safe) as well as what constitutes an emergency!
Creating a fire safety center was a great way for the children to role play and practice what to do when there is G-d forbid a fire and to appreciate what the firefighters do.
Role playing is an especially good way to address various emergency scenarios to give children the confidence they'll need to handle them.
Vacuum boxes and diaper boxes made our fleet of fire trucks!
First the children painted the boxes red.
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| Mendel and Jacob ran to go get their fire hats while they painted! |
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| Reaching really high |
Making Fire masks so not to breathe in the smoke when putting out a fire!
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| Made the masks out of Styrofoam bowls cut in half and a rubber band to help hold it on their face. |
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| Ilani adding lots of black pieces on his |
While we were waiting for our boxes to dry and be made into trucks the children found a different way to make a pretend truck engine! Our Sensory table!
Trucks were ready! Aron giving Levi a ride in his engine.
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| Adding a nut and bolt to the steering wheel allowed the children to really feel like they were driving! |
Rochel driving the engine with a mask and her hose handy to spray the fire!
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| We put ribbon 'suspenders' to help keep the truck up while driving. |
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| Andor sitting in his with his hose :) |
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| Ilani on a fire emergency call |
The "Fire Station" that was set up on one side of the room included phones, computers, paper and keyboards for the children to "receive" calls from their friends in the "house" (kitchen center) on the other side of the room!
Next to this center we had a fleet of Fire Engines (child made from boxes) as well as fire hats and hoses allowing the children to head over to the "play house" to role play rushing over after getting an emergency call. They used their hoses to pretend "spraying water" to put out the "fires."
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| Mendel wearing his fire mask so he wouldn't breathe in the smoke. |
We put shiny red and silver paper on our stove to give a realistic feel to the flames in the kitchen.
Some of the children made out like the flames got too big and needed to be taken out and some children just pretended to stay a good distance away from the stove.
Through out the week we put different spots of 'fire' for the children to find and put out! Ellah found one on the cabinet door and rushed to spray water on it!
Our Audio center had sounds of Fire sirens, and engines that are on the job!
We did this in the hope that if a child does hear a real siren, he/she won't be scared! They will realize the reason why there needs to be a loud sound ----to make way for the rescue workers to get to the emergency scene and help!
Andor listening closely to the different sounds of a fire engine.
In our sensory table we put water and floating flames with 911 numbers or the letter F for fire written on it. The children were offered to spray water on the flames while recognizing the number or letters on the flame.
Levi working hard to operate the sprayer.
(Great fine motor development)
Chani enjoying the feeling of the cold water.
By circle time we looked at different pictures of fire and learned the difference between fires that are okay (we just need to be safe around them) and the fires that are dangerous - for which we need to quickly call 911.
Examples we used: Shabbat candles, bonfires and bbq's are okay---we just need to be safe around them. (no touching!)
If we see a Fire on trees, houses we need to call 911!
When looking at the picture of a fire in a forest , we quickly took out the pretend phone and role played calling 911 and describing the emergency while staying calm.
(this is particularly important for us here in California, with the wild fires!)
Morah Lisa role playing that there was fire in her kitchen she called 911 and the children quickly came to the rescue!
We used these pictures on magnets to create a game on the white board. It gave the children an opportunity to make the decisions on their own.
Which side does the picture belong to?
Do we need to be careful and safe? OR
call 911?
Shapes
Mastering various shapes while making a fire engine project.
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| Circles, rectangles and more! |
Literacy:
Lots of new books on fires and fire safety!
Levi- "there's the smoke!"
Stop, drop and roll!
With a little fire picture taped to the children's clothes we practiced to calmly STOP --no running!
DROP, and ROLL!
Chani decided the fire mask looked better as a hat!
