Safety

Field Trip
We started out Safety week with a field trip to the fire station. Thanks to all you you who came! The kids had a great time. We started with a video about fire safety that talked about having a plan to get out of your house in case of a fire. The fire fighter also taught us about not playing with fire and matches to stay safe, and we practiced Stop Drop and Roll and calling 911 in an emergency. Then we got to tour the Fire Station! Most kids liked it, and others were nervous. It can be a scary thing, and fires can be scary to kids, but I think it helps to meet the firefighters and see that they're nice and there to help you. Especially when they show the kids what they look like in their full gear, they're showing the kids that if they come to help them dressed that way, they can trust them. Some kids took a turn to drive the truck and hold the hose. We also got fire hats they all thought were cool! We ate snack at the park and played a few minutes on the Fire Station playground too. Back at school, the kids got some free play time before we did small groups.

Dramatic Play
We played Fire Station all week. I had more fire fighter coats this year and that made it a lot of fun! They had lots of fun dressing up and playing firefighters all week, and I think it was great to go to the fire station first so they could see what they do.
 
I even made oxygen tanks by spray painting pop bottles yellow.




The second week, after they had learned and practiced calling 911 and being dispatchers, their play really expanded with them using the phones to call and giving an address to the firefighters. There were pictures of houses on the wall in the block area with numbers, and they were good at giving those numbers as their address. Learning math and life skills in play!


 

Blocks
The block area had a doll house the first week, with dolls and some firefighters. My firefighters were about half the size of the dolls, but they didn't seem to mind! They had some great make believe play!
 

The second week we had out the car mat and cars. Both were a great extension of the fire station, as the kids used them together to put out fires in the doll house and in the buildings on the car mat.

Art
We played play dough.
We made collages with glue and a variety of different things to glue on our papers.
We made fall leaves for our tree. We did marble painting, by rolling marbles in paint, then dropping them in large cans with our papers inside. We shook the cans to spread the paint, then took our papers out when they were ready. Once they dried, I cut out the fall leaf shape and added them to our classroom tree.
 
 



I somehow forgot to get a pic of the finished tree!

We also finger painted. I tried this recipe, but it didn't turn out great. It kinda dried to a gelatin consistency. I added more water and stirred more and it worked, but it was lumpy. The kids still enjoyed it and it was a great sensory experience (like our gelatin molds), but I don't think I'll use it again.

Small Manips
We did 2 different fire fighter floor puzzles.
We played a community helpers game and did a community helpers floor puzzle.

Outside
We had wheat in the sensory table, and added the firefighters to it the second week.
We also had out balls and other toys.
The kids are loving the swing set and spend most of the time swinging and sliding!

Snacks
Besides the regular snack rotations, we made traffic lights for snack one day. The kids spread their frosting on their graham crackers, then added skittles to make it a traffic light.

 
 

Songs
We learned 2 new songs, one about fire trucks one about calling 911.

Hurry, hurry, drive that fire truck,
Hurry, hurry, drive that fire truck,
Hurry, hurry, drive that fire truck,
Other verses:
Hurry, hurry, turn that corner
climb the ladder
squirt the hoses
Slowly, slowly, back to the fire house

911 (tune of Bingo)
There is a number you can call when you need someone's help.
You call 911, you call 911, you call 911 when you need someone's help!

Large Group
Day 1 was the field trip.
Day 2 we had eaten our traffic lights for snack, and learned more about them in large group. We read about traffic safety, then played Red Light Green Light.
Day 3 we read about Playground Safety, and did a safety experiment on our playground. We took 2 apples outside. We made predictions about what would happen if we dropped them on the grass and cement. Then we did it. The one dropped on grass had nothing happen to it. The one that I dropped on the cement broke open and juice came out, which they immediately connected to being blood if it was them that fell. We talked about the safest place to run on our playground, and they knew it was the grass because if they fell, the wouldn't cut their knee open and bleed.
 
Day 4 we read a Sesame Street safety book and wrote in our journals how we can stay safe.

Small Group
I taught the kids about calling 911. We practiced using real phones, and one child got to be the dispatcher while another called to report an emergency. We also talked about what emergencies are that we would need to call 911, and times when we shouldn't. As with most lessons this week, I emphasized with the kids that they are small enough there should always be an adult or baby sitter watching them who would know what to do in an emergency and they could count on them to know if they needed to call 911.

Our mom volunteers read an interactive safety book to the kids that posed different situations, and the kids got to pick the safest answer. They pushed the button to see if their answer was right. I was so glad to have small groups to get to use this book, since they love having turns to push the buttons and that's hard to do in large group!

Week 2, I read the kids a book about strangers and we talked about "stranger danger." Hopefully you read my other blog post about Strangers with links to great articles on how to talk to our kids about this topic. We talked about the situations in the book and what would be safe (like not wandering off from our parents and finding a "safe" stranger like a mom with kids or a cashier or police officer if we did get lost).

Our mom volunteers played a community helpers game with the kids, and also helped them place ambulance cards with numbers 1-10 in order.

Your Child's Safety

This theme has been on my mind all summer. A friend shared some articles on how to protect your child from sexual abuse and it's been on my mind ever since. As uncomfortable as it seems to discuss this topic, we all know it's something we have to teach our children. (One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.) I vaguely remember being taught about it in school, with groups coming in and doing skits and talking about our "uh-oh" alarms. We also had the Safety Kids books and tapes as kids and I remember the song about "sometimes you just gotta yell and scream." Stranger Danger was a popular concept to teach back then, but we know now that most child abuse and abductions happen by people we know.
I'm not an expert in this area, but I am a concerned teacher and parent. I've researched and read a lot about this topic and want to share what I've learned with you so you can better protect your child. One of the biggest ways to prevent our children from being sexually abused is by having a close and open relationship with them. Predators go after the weak, and are unlikely to harm a child if they know that child will tell someone. Through the "grooming" process, they often test the boundaries and if a child tells a trusted adult at this phase they will often back off (Time magazine had an article about Jerry Sandusky that discussed this tactic. It was scary to learn how many kids did tell, yet he still hurt so many who didn't.)
I will not be discussing with your preschoolers how to stay safe from child predators during our 2 week Safety Unit. I believe this is something that you should be teaching in your home and did not feel it was appropriate for me to talk about with them.
We will talk a little about strangers with a book called Don't Talk to Strangers by Christine Mehlhaff. It gives a general overview of who strangers are and why we don't talk to them and what to do. I think a valid fear in parents is that a stranger will hurt your child, but we don't want to scare our children so much that they are scared of everyone. Another fear of mine is my child getting lost when we are out somewhere. A general rule I'm trying to teach her (and I'll talk about with your kids) is how to find someone to help them. At a grocery store, they can go to the front where you buy your groceries and tell them you're lost. They can look for a police officer in uniform. I have also taught her to look for a mom with kids. A mom with kids is a stranger you can trust (I hope!). Another person would be a grandmother.
As a mom, I'm scared to talk about this topic with my own child, and so I've tried to arm myself with information to help me. I hope to do the same for you. Here are links to articles I've read and found helpful and hope that you do as well.

Stranger Danger:
Tricky People are the New Strangers
Dr. Phil
How to Teach Your Child Stranger Danger
Stranger Danger Resources
Tips for Parents
10 Ways to Test Your Child about Stranger Danger

Protecting your child from sexual abuse:
Protect Your Child From a Predator
10 Body Safety Rules
Books to Teach Kids Appropriate Touch
I Said No
Lessons to Parents from the Sandusky Verdict
In Plain View: How Child Molesters Get Away With It