Safety First, Little Darlings!

This week, our area of focus was on safety.  While I am typically not a doomsday theorist, I admit, I worry about my children more than I have worried about anything... ever.  To be perfectly honest, I think I worry more in the span of a week than I did in my entire 28 years prior.  That being said, I want to ensure my children know what to do if we are separated, who to trust, and in general, have knowledge of safety – within reason. 

I like to take the, “learning is fun” approach and recognize that this one week of safety focus will in no way, shape or form be the last time we visit this topic. 

We took the time this week to learn and play with safety-related issues.  In general, I prepare our learning weeks about a week in advance.  I do this because the learning packs suggest books to read and I often have to request them from the library.  I may have to cut/laminate/print learning tools also.  I try, whenever possible, to structure our week with pre-school curriculum in mind (I have been using http://littleadventurespreschool.blogspot.com).This is a great site with lots of learning packs that can be purchased, downloaded, and used as an assistant for your little lovey’s. 

This week we used the Safety Tot Pack and added some different activities, play, and additional art activities for the kids.  When possible, I try to adjust these activities so Innes, our one-year-old can enjoy as well.

We borrowed the following books to read throughout the week in support of our learning topic:

                 Firefighter Frank

       My Body Belongs to Me

       I Said No!

       Do You Have a Secret?

       Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept

      At the Fire House

We have Curious George visits the Fire Station and so we used some of our home books as well.  I took suggestions from the following website for books: http://www.pragmaticmom.com/2013/03/books-for-kids-bodies/

For our activities, we made a fire truck out of a cardboard box:

 

Matched colored fire hydrant (included in safety tot pack):

What’s the color of the fire truck (included in safety tot pack):

Completed “helper” puzzles (included in safety tot pack):

Matched safety sign shapes: (included in safety tot pack):

Made “firefighter hands”:

Started cutting activities (included in safety tot pack): It’s incredibly fun watching him concentrate on this activity.  Cutting in a straight line for this two-year-old is quite the arduous task.

When possible, I like to tie a “family field trip” into our learning activity for the week.  This one was especially enjoyable because we were able to visit a fire station.

Our play activities included:

Melissa and Doug Policeman and Firemen puppet shows – I encourage Haakon to use the puppets to talk about what we learned and encourage understanding.

Melissa and Dough Sound Blocks – It’s great watching him try to manipulate the blocks and match the pictures to make sound.

Setting up our train tracks with a fire and police station – Pretty self-explanatory but he’s always into this type of play.

After this week, the next time we travel to Minnesota and Haakon (dinosaur luggage in tow) goes missing; he will know what to do.  He will know whom to turn to. And perhaps, just perhaps, when asking, “AM I DOING THIS CORRECTLY?”  The answer will be yes.

I also wanted to complete the following, but just plum ran out of steam.  Forgive me, I'm trying to do this correctly, eh?:

ABC Fire's - http://www.playdoughtoplato.com/2013/08/06/abc-fireman-spray/

Sensory fire extinguishing - http://mylittlesonbeam.blogspot.com/2013/11/november-week-1.html?m=1