Teaching Fire Safety

[SilverSabre25]

What do you teach?

What ages?

I was replacing smoke detectors this morning and was getting lots of questions from DD (4.5) and DCB (4 in a month)...what am I doing? Why? What if there's fire? Will that ever happen? Why does the smoke detector make that noise? etc...

So I was talking to them about fire, and what do if the smoke detector ever goes off, and what to do if it's smokey, and if the door is hot, etc. It was scaring DD for sure (but she's sensitive and I expected the fear) and I think DCB was scared (but he's a lot harder to read).

My mom, who's living with us right now, was overhearing this conversation, and I think that she was totally disapproving of what I was telling them. I started questioning whether they were too young...but at 4.5 and 4 they should know this stuff, right? DD especially is a very mature 4.5.

[familyschoolcare]

They will get some fir safety next year in kindergauten. So I do not think it is too young.

[DBug]

We do our evacuation drills with the smoke detector, exactly for that reason. My dc kids are all 2.75 yrs and younger, but I want them to know what to do when they hear the smoke detector go off, rather than just sit and cry because of the noise, kwim? At this point I usually have to say the word "Evacuation" when I set off the smoke detector so that they know what to do, but hopefully it'll start to sink in eventually.

We practice crawling in case "we can't see where we're going" (in case of smoke), and we go to the door. My hope is that if I'm ever incapacitated, they'll still know to go to the door where they'll be found more easily.

I don't use the word "fire" too often, because they'll run around yelling "fire!" while they're playing (found that out with the first couple of drills!). They still run around playing "evacuation" but at least it's not a word that would alarm someone if they were playing it at Gramma's house or wherever.

I totally don't think they're too young to know this stuff, without going into gory details. If they know what to do in an emergency, it gives them less to be afraid of .

[Abigail]

Here were suppose to give monthly fire drills for practice. All my kids are 2 and I want to find a good way to do this. Sometime I will check out some books on fire safety and make a big learning experience about it, but I want to go about it the right way. This summer we're going to be practicing escaping through the basement window which I think the kids will think it's fun. The first drill we'll do will be using the door of course. That is a good point to use the word evacuation instead of fire, but I guess I'll have to look more into it. I am going to use our real fire alarm sound because that is the sound that kids need to know what to do. Soon we'll be entering tornado season and the kids might get to hear those sirons go off so we'll have to practice that kind of a drill also.

[Meeko]

Never too young. When I did day care on Oklahoma, we had to have tornado drills as well as fire drills. The town sirens would go off every month and we would go to our central hallway. One day, the drill was on a weekend. On the following Monday, day care parents of one of my TWO year olds told me the minute she heard the sirens, she dragged her parents to their hallway!!!

Talking about fire CAN be scary...but better scared now that panicked in a real fire.

FEMA has a lot a child related stuff you can order. Some is free, other stuff is for a small fee. I sent the kids home with coloring books, a fold-up fire truck (their fave) etc. Check out their web site.

My local dollar store often has fire chief hats and so I buy all they have when I see them!!!

[Blackcat31]

We do an entire unit for fire safety. the local fire department comes up to my daycare and teaches the kids all the necessary things, lets them ride in the fire truck, turn the siren on and off, try the fire suit gear and helmet on and they give out plastic fireman's hats, stickers and coloring books to the kids.

My kiddos look forward to it every year. Last year we teamed up with the neighboring daycare provider and she brought her kids over to participate too. She is now retired but it was great having a daycare next door to partner up with for things like this.

I think you should call your local fire dept and see if they will do anything for you.

Here are a couple pictures of the kids with the fireman and truck.

[snbauser]

Like a pp, we also do an entire unit of on fire safety in October in conjunction with fire safety week, including having the fire truck come visit. We are also required to have monthly fire drills. We usually do them with the smoke detector since that is what they would hear at home but we sometimes do it with the pull alarm I have because that is closer to what they hear when they go to the public school. They are definately not too young. They need to know what the sound is and what they need to do when they hear the sound. They need to know the importance of a meeting spot and how critical it is that they do not go back into the building to get their favorite blankie, toy, pet, etc. until the fire department says that it is safe. For some it may be scary at first, but if you do the drills on a regular basis, they get used to what the sound is and understand what the importance of it is.

[MarinaVanessa]

I teach about fire safety and fire drills by reading books and talking to them like you do and I do it for every age. Here in CA were mandated to practice fire drills every 6 months minimum but I try to do it every month. I have a picture of a flame that I place in random areas of the daycare before I do a fire drill and I wait until one of the kids notices it. They have to come and tell me about the "fire" and then that's when we line up and do the drill. Once we come back in we talk about playing with fire and why we don't do that. I let the kids lead the conversation and let them ask the questions and I ask them questions to try to have them come up with the answers. I then offer suggestions if I feel that there's something that needs to be covered. I think that the ages of your kids are perfect to teach them about fire safety.

[AllDeezBabies]

I think it's great you teach the babies about fire safety. That should be a theme for you. A few days of fire safety. Teaching them about stop, drop and roll. Awwww.