Fire Safety Activity Cards

The Fire Safety Song is designed to be an introduction to the basic concepts of fire safety. For the song to be an effective learning lesson, it should be followed up with practice in the child's own home or school. The song introduces concepts and opens critical dialogue with your child and family. Prior to our fire safety study, many families who participated admitted they had never discussed issues such as meeting place, safest route out, or smoke alarm. Repetition and real life practice using the song as a model are necessary for the child to generalize fire safety skills to his or her individual environment.

activities:
1. Pick a meeting place for your home and practice the path to it from places your child spends most of the day...bedroom, play room, kitchen.

2. Once the child knows the path to get out of his or her home, activate your smoke alarm so the child can hear it and recognize the sound. Many children are frightened of the sound and will cover their ears. This is okay as long as the fear doesn't cause them to hide. Teach them that the sound means, "time to go to the meeting place". Practice will not eliminate the sensitivity to the noise, but knowing what to do gives the child a sense of control which can help to reduce the fear.

3.. Use the Fire Safety Activity cards (see links below) to make a social story or sequence of what to do in case of a fire. Customize a picture card to represent your agreed upon meeting place.

skill development:
introduces dialogue and practice of important fire safety skills, such as meeting place, never hide, crawl under smoke.

view and print picture cards:
1" picture cards
2" picture cards (set1)
2" picture cards (set 2)

Coloring pages: crawl, crawl under smoke, fire, fire drill, fire fighter, follow, get down, go outside, sit, smoke, smoke alarm, wait, don't hide, leave things behind, meeting place.

other helpful links:
http://www.usfa.fema.gov/kids/index.htm
United States Fire Administration site includes some games that teach fire safety rules. On the smoke alarm page, you can listen to what a smoke alarm sounds like (a beeping sound). This may help to desensitize children who fear the noise.

http://www.dos.state.ny.us/kidsroom/firesafe/firesafe.html
A nice site sponsored by New York State Department of State, with the help of Arson Dog "Hershey", has games, songs, and rule sheets that can be printed.

http://www.survivealive.org/main.html
Sponsored by Allstate, the site includes games, coloring pages, and a fun "Escape Planner" where you can drag and drop house components to build your house escape route, and then print it.