Safety
During the week we taught about safety, we covered many different avenues...we talked about bicycle safety, home safety, fire safety, water safety, stranger awareness, street safety, and car safety. We tried to cover as much as possible about each of the topics and what our children might experience.
Center Ideas: We made a stop light matching game for the math and manipulative center; we added red, yellow, and green painted small paper plates to the back of our housekeeping mirror to be a traffic light, and some orange safety vests for the children to wear, life vests, goggles, towel, swimsuits; in blocks we added popsicle sticks that were painted to look like stop lights for the vehicles
Topics to Cover: Bicycle safety--wearing a helmet, riding on the sidewalk, watching for pedestrians, stay away from parked vehicles, stop, look, and listen at driveways. Home safety--being aware of "hot" items (iron, stove, heaters), answering the phone, opening the door to strangers, electrical outlets.
Fire safety--having a meeting place, stop, drop and roll, identifying numbers for 9-1-1, smoke detectors, fire drills, firemen are our friends (we even have a fireman come to our class with his gear and show the children what he looks like all dressed up and what he sounds like, this can be very scary for children, they sound like Darth Vader).
Water safety--only go swimming if an adult is around, no running, watch were you jump, no dunking. Stranger awareness--what a stranger is, use pictures from a magazine to help kids realize that strangers are not just ugly people, don't go places with a stranger, how to yell for help.
Street safety--walk and ride on sidewalks, watch for parked cars, stop, look, and listen--look left, right, and left again before crossing, hold an adults hand.
Car safety--always sit in the backseat, buckle up and make use the adults do to, ride in a safety seat (TN law--4 and under OR under 40 pounds must be a child restraint), no loud noises to distract the driver, quiet at railroad crossings.