A Safe Place

It may have only been two days, but we had a busy week learning about safety.  We started out hearing from two great All About Me presentations then talked about the role of fire fighters and police officers to set the tone for this unit.The morning classes worked on writing books about safety by matching pictures and tracing words to "read" at home.  When these books come home please ask your child to read it to you. Yes, you will be helping them with most if not all the words, but practice makes perfect and more importantly, builds confidence and excitement for learning. Then, we modeled the words, "Stop", "Slow", and "Go" at the front of the class then asked our older preschoolers to write the words on their own on red, yellow and green circles to create a stop light. I was so impressed with so many of our preschoolers, I can't wait for them to see this kind of success next year! They have come so far!We made a group of fire fighters holding a hose by either tracing hands in red crayon or dipping hands in red paint.  Then, cutting out helmets and drawing hoses and adding blue for the water to show how fire fighters work as a team when putting out fires.

 We read bones with safety tips like, "stay low and go," and the preschoolers tied them together with string to create a 'bone ladder' of sorts under a Dalmatian head. 
The children were able to draw their own dog faces and glue ears and a fire helmet to the top of the dog's head then we hung the bones to review fire safety at home.





Stories about fire fighters, police officers, fire houses and police stations were read this week as we tried to help paint a better picture for where these community helpers work.  Some of our preschoolers talked about going to fire station open houses and if you have never been to one, we strongly recommend an event like this.  It's so great to hear first hand from the professionals how to stay safe at home and what to do in case of fire.



This week we were lucky enough to have the Palatine High School's Health and Safety Fair the same day as one of our preschool days so we asked the fire fighter at school to visit the preschool and allow them to check out his gear.  He stopped in to our morning preschool but was called away before getting to come back to the afternoon group.  We have rescheduled a time for him to stop in to the afternoon preschool in the coming weeks for those preschoolers so be on the look out because you never know the schedule of a fire fighter.  

Our visitor talked about how wearing his gear may make him look a little different but he's still the same nice person inside his uniform and it's important to know it's ok to talk to him in a fire situation. 

 This is the toughest thing for some young children to understand, when a person comes through a smokey room sounding different and looking different, they normally shy away from them and get hurt during a fire.  By getting to see a fire fighter in a safe situation with all the protective gear on, it makes the children more likely to not fear fire fighters when an emergency arises.



For a math activity you can easily do at home, we allowed preschoolers to cut out pictures of water and fire and glue them to a strip of paper making their own patterns.  If you checked your child's strip of paper and their pattern didn't make sense, you know this is a skill they need to work on at home.  Asking them to look for and create patterns out of anything helps them improve this skill.



Fire fighters wear helmets as a part of their uniforms and we decided to make fire helmets this week and label the badge on the front with an FD for Fire Department.  
Many of the children enjoyed getting to wear their hats around the room and we hope they continue to do this at home.

As stated earlier, the phrase "stay low and go" was one we used a lot with the children this week.  So, we took turns playing a limbo game of sorts with the preschoolers as they crawled under the "smoke" in the room to stay low and get to safety.  Many enjoyed racing the teachers to see who could crawl the lowest.



Soon it was time to talk about fire safety and all the types of fire we see in homes today.  Mrs. Stary brought out candles and a lighter and talked about how these are two things many people have in their homes and the importance of telling a grown up when you see them. 
 Mrs. Stary played the role of the grown up while teachers played the roles of children and we demonstrated how to tell an adult when you see these items and not to touch them because they are hot.

Then, Mrs. Stary had a bit of magic up her sleeve.  We showed the preschoolers how when you cover a burning candle with a glass or vase, all the air starts to leave the candle and it takes away the power in the flame to keep burning.  Soon, the candle's flame goes out.  This is why we stop, drop and roll.  We 'squish' the air out of the flame and it makes the fire go out.  After watching Mrs. Stary do this with candles, we put these items away and the preschoolers all practiced stop, drop, and roll.  
(Make sure your child practices this by covering his/her face in order to keep that part of the body safe.)





As promised, our police officer friend stopped in this week to see the preschoolers in the afternoon.  He asked them how they were able to identify him as an officer and they pointed out his badge, gun, handcuffs and patches on his sleeves of his uniform.  These are good items to point out on anyone who might be a 'safe' person for a child like a store worker, etc.



The police officer also talked about his phone number (911) and how to dial it and that anyone can call it any time they don't feel safe or there is an emergency.  We talked about what an emergency might be and he reassured the children someone is there to protect them 24 hours a day.  
If you ever want to practice dialing 911 with your child, you are free to do so as long as you explain what you are doing to the operator when you make the call.  In the age of cell phones, it is a good idea to make sure your preschooler knows how to dial on a cell phone in case they need to help someone some day.

After our police officer friend left, we heard our fire fighter guest was needed elsewhere so we moved on to our fire paintings.  Each preschooler was given a picture of a house then they painted 'fire' on the parts of the house fire might appear.  

It helped us talk with the children about what they would do and what kind of fire safety plan they might have at home.  This is something for you to look into for your family.  Children feel safer when they know there is a plan in place in case of emergency.






We made fire engines out of red rectangles, with blue squares for windows and black circles for wheels.  The preschoolers drew themselves or firefighters in these fire engines as we worked on math.  What a great time we had learning shapes, working with scissors and creating art projects all at once!






Lastly, we tuckered out some afternoon preschoolers with a game of Red Light, Green Light.  This game is great for playing outside and the children loved taking turns being in charge of changing the colors of the light.  Don't be surprised if the next time you are at a stop light or approaching one your preschooler gives you directions!

What's coming up?
This coming week is a little crazy because of ACT testing at Palatine High School.  There will be preschool Monday and FRIDAY with no school on Wednesday because the high-schoolers will be taking state exams.  A letter will be sent home in cubbies as a reminder as well.

We will be talking about Food next week so look for lots of fun stories!