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    Optional add-on · Safety · 30 min · Fits Week 19

    Fire Safety, Part 1: Smoke Alarms and Our Escape Plan

    Objective: Your child will know the sound of a smoke alarm, explain 'get out and stay out,' and help make a home escape plan with two ways out and a meeting place outside.

    Materials: your home's smoke alarms, a step stool (for the grown-up), paper, pencil, crayons

    Helps with topics listed by: New York, Pennsylvania, California

    1. Warm-Up: What Is That Sound? (5 min)

      Tell your child you are going to make a loud noise on purpose. Stand on the step stool and press the test button on one smoke alarm while your child covers their ears if they like. Ask: 'What does that sound tell us?' Explain: 'A smoke alarm smells smoke before we can. When it beeps like that, it means get out now.' Show them where the alarms are in your home. Point out that a short chirp now and then is different: it usually means the battery is low, and a grown-up fixes it.

    2. Mini-Lesson: Get Out and Stay Out (10 min)

      Teach three rules and have your child repeat each one. (1) 'Get low and go.' Smoke rises, so the cleanest air is near the floor. Practice crawling across the room on hands and knees. (2) 'Feel the door.' Before opening a closed door, touch it with the back of your hand. If it is hot, use your other way out. (3) 'Get out and stay out.' Leave everything behind, including toys and pets. Never go back inside for anything. Firefighters are trained to go in; children are not. Ask: 'Your favorite stuffed animal is still in your room. What do you do?' (Keep going to the meeting place.)

    3. Practice: Our Home Escape Map (10 min)

      Walk through your home together. In each bedroom, find two ways out: usually the door and a window. On paper, your child draws a simple map of the home and draws arrows for two ways out of their own bedroom. Then go outside and choose a meeting place that will not move, such as a tree, a mailbox or a neighbor's front step. Your child draws it on the map and writes its name. Tell your child that a grown-up will call 911 from outside, once everyone is out. Put the map on the fridge.

    4. Wrap-Up (5 min)

      Ask your child to 'teach back' the plan: 'The alarm beeps in the night. What do you do, step by step?' Listen for: get low, feel the door, get out, go to the meeting place, stay out. Tell them you will practice the whole plan as a family drill this quarter (the Week 20 health page has a fire plan to finish).

    Practice page

    Optional add-on · Fire Safety, Part 1: Smoke Alarms and Our Escape Plan

    I can tell what to do when the smoke alarm beeps.

    Look: If the smoke alarm beeps

    1. Get low and go. Crawl under the smoke.
    2. Feel the door with the back of your hand. Hot? Use your other way out.
    3. Get out and stay out. Go to the meeting place.

    Circle the best answer.

    1. The smoke alarm beeps loud and fast. What does it mean?Get out now.Time for lunch.Go back to sleep.
    2. Where is the cleanest air when there is smoke?up highlow, near the floor
    3. Your pet is still inside. What do you do?Go back in.Stay out and tell a firefighter.
    4. The door feels hot. What do you do?Open it fast.Use my other way out.

    Our escape plan. Do this with a grown-up.

    1. Draw your bedroom. Draw arrows to two ways out.
    2. Our meeting place outside is ____
    3. Where are the smoke alarms in our home? Write two places.

    Challenge

    • Why do we never go back inside a burning home?
    How did it go? Great Okay Tricky