Interactive Learning Stations

Interactive learning stations

The next time a classroom visits your fire department, make it an interactive experience by creating learning stations. Or take the learning stations to a local school, a mall, a retail store or other community locations where children and their families gather. Whether you want to teach kids about smoke alarms or help them create home fire escape plans, you'll need to do the following:

Calling all volunteers: You'll need a firefighter or trained community partner for each learning station. Make sure that the instructors are familiar with all of the stations – that way they will know what the kids have already been taught before arriving at their particular station.
Get it on the calendar: Contact the local school principal and provide an overview of the planned activities and invite classrooms to participate. Select a day and make sure all volunteers are available to participate for the entire time. Schedule classroom visits in 45-minute intervals. Talk to the appropriate authorities at other locations in the community about setting up learning stations there.
Check it twice: Follow-up with the school the day before the scheduled visit to reconfirm participation of all scheduled classrooms.
Care enough to give the best:NFPA offers awide variety of materials (brochures, coloring books, etc.) created by experts to communicate accurate, consistent, and age-appropriate fire safety messages. Give the materials to the classroom teacher after the students have completed the learning stations.
Have fun: Consider expanding your program next year by adding more days and more classrooms. Also,send us your ideasfor new stations to add next year!

Learning stations 1-2

These step-by-step instructions will help you create different learning stations. When students arrive, divide them into groups and assign each group to a station. Plan to have each group of students spend four minutes at each station. After four minutes move the students to another station. Continue until the students have visited all stations. After completing the stations, all the students will meet at the sing-along station with the firefighters.

Learning Station #1: Sound the Alarm

Materials: Smoke alarm, battery

Presentation: Show students the smoke alarm. Explain that a smoke alarm knows when there is smoke in your home. When the smoke alarm knows there is smoke, it will make a loud sound to let everyone know there is a fire. Make sure they understand that when there is smoke, there is probably a fire somewhere, and that smoke is always bad for them. Explain that it is important to know the sound of the smoke alarm and when the smoke alarm sounds, get out and stay out.

Activity:

Ask if anyone knows what sound a smoke alarm makes. Demonstrate the sound of a smoke alarm by pushing the test button.
Have kindergarten and first grade students make the sound of the smoke alarm – beep, beep, beep (pause) beep, beep, beep.
Ask students if they have smoke alarms at home.
Show students how to test a smoke alarm. Encourage them to have a grown-up test their alarms once a month by pushing the test button. Allow students to push the test button.
Teach them the five most important words to remember when a smoke alarm sounds, GET OUT AND STAY OUT!
Ask them what they would do if a smoke alarm sounded in the middle of the night. Answer: GET OUT AND STAY OUT!

Learning Station #2: Everybody Out

Materials: Doll house with doll figures, small white button to simulate a home smoke alarm, Velcro, sample home escape plan based on the doll house you are using. Note: If your community has multi-family or high-rise housing, ask a firefighter who is handy with wood to make a doll house to resemble the housing in your community.

Presentation: Explain to students that a home fire escape plan is a plan to get out of their home in case there is a fire. If they hear a smoke alarm go off, they need to know how to escape quickly and safely. Remind students of the important parts of a home fire escape plan: knowing the sound of the smoke alarm, having two ways out of every room, having a meeting place outside the home, and practicing the escape plan twice a year. If possible, try to get a sense of the type of home the students live in. Modify the presentation to meet the needs of the students.

Activity:

Gather students around the doll house and explain the escape plan for the house.
Have them identify the two ways out of each room, smoke alarm locations (attach Velcro to a white button and the ceiling in the doll house). Note: Smoke alarms are required in every bedroom, outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home.
Ask students to tell you what they think a good outside meeting place for the doll house would be. (A good meeting place might be a telephone pole, a tree, mailbox, or a streetlight)
Pretend that the smoke alarm sounds and the doll house figures are in different rooms of the house. Have students explain how each figure would get out of the house and where they would meet. Note: Make sure to reinforce proper responses and correct inappropriate answers.

Learning stations 3-5

Learning Station #3: Keep it Down: Teaching Students to Get Low and Go Under the Smoke

Materials: Gym mats, sheet

Presentation: Explain to students that when they hear a smoke alarm sound, they need to get out of the house or apartment quickly. Explain that if there is smoke on the way out, they should use their second way out. Smoke is dangerous. If they must go through smoke, they should get low and go under the smoke to their way out. Why? Because smoke rises to the ceiling, leaving cleaner air under the smoke.

Activity:

Have students line up at one end of the gym mat. Four student volunteers will hold the corners of the sheet over the gym mats at a height higher than two feet.
Demonstrate how to get low and go under smoke.
Have students practice getting low and going under the smoke to their way out.
Have a meeting place marked where all the students will go after practicing.
Review the important information about smoke: If there is smoke, use your second way out. If you must go through smoke, get low and go under the smoke to your way out. Once you are safely outside, go immediately to your meeting place and call the fire department from a portable phone or from a neighbor’s house.

Learning Station #4: Stop, Drop and Roll – Cool the Burn

Materials: gym mats, felt flames, tape

Presentation: Explain to students that it is important to stay away from fire. If they get too close to open flames – like a fireplace, outdoor grill, lighter, and matches – their clothes could catch fire. Explain that if their clothes do start to burn, it is important to act right away. They need to stop right where they are and drop to the ground. They should cover their faces with their hands, and roll over and over or back and forth to smother the flames. Explain that it takes time to put out flames, and they should continue rolling for a long time, until they are sure the flames are out. Then they should cool the burn with cool water and get help from a grown-up.

Activities:

Demonstrate the Stop, Drop, and Roll procedure for students.
Give each student an opportunity to practice the behavior. Tape a felt flame on the child and have him/her roll over and over.
Have the students practice rolling in a confined space. Using chairs or other furniture, demonstrate that a tight space may require rolling back and forth, as opposed to rolling over and over.

Learning Station #5: Matches, Lighters, and Things That Get Hot

Materials: Small cabinet with a lock, matches, lighter, sample small toys (truck, ball, doll, book), iron, toaster, candle

Presentation: Explain to students that matches and lighters are tools for grown-ups only because they can get very hot and cause a fire. Matches and lighters should be locked up high, out of the reach of children. If students find matches or lighters, they should tell a grown-up to lock them away in a safe place. Explain that some things can be very hot and children should not touch them. Ask children to give examples of things that can get hot (stove, iron, water, and candle).

Activities:

Demonstrate placing the matches and lighter away in the locked cabinet.
Display the toys, matches, lighter, iron, toaster and candle on a table. Ask the students to identify the things that children can touch. Then ask the children to identify the things that they should never touch, things that should be placed in a locked cabinet and things that can be hot.

Learning stations 6-10

Learning Station #6: Firefighters Wear Funny Stuff

Materials: turnout gear, 9-1-1 simulator or telephone

Presentation: Have a firefighter talk about the special clothes and equipment used for protection, putting on each item as he/she explains it. Note: Do not let the children try on the gear (especially the helmet). The clothes and equipment are too heavy and could injure a child. Explain that firefighters wear special clothes and equipment to fight fires, and that sometimes it's necessary for them to rescue people from inside burning homes and buildings. Explain that it is important to know how to get help from the fire department.The number to call is 9-1-1. But you only use it if you need help. Ask children why they might need help? (There is a fire; someone is really sick or hurt really bad)

Activity:

Point to special clothes and equipment and ask students to explain how they protect the firefighter.
Have students practice repeating the fire department emergency number for their community.

Learning Station #7: Sparky the Fire Dog® photo opportunity

Materials: camera,Sparky the Fire Dog® costume, puppet, or robot

Activity: Children will have their photo taken with Sparky the Fire Dog. Ask the students to explain one important message that they have learned that day.

Learning Station #8: Fun with art

Materials: crayons, Sparky coloring pages, construction paper, glue

Activities:

Have children use the art materials to createfire safety projectsto give to someone they care about.
Make Sparky the Fire Dog® ears by cutting out a two-inch strip of white construction paper that will go around the child's head. Cut out doggy ears for the children to glue to the sides of the strip. Have them use crayons to add black dots for spots.
Duplicate the Sparky coloring pages for children to color.

Learning Station #9: TechnoCenter

Materials: computer with internet access

Activities:

Have kids exploreSparky's Arcade.
Have kids send aSparky e-cardto family and friends.

Learning Station #10: Safety Sing-Along

Materials: NFPA'sLearn Not to Burn® Preschool Program, cassette player or keyboard and guitar, preschool songs lyrics transparencies, overhead projector

Activities:

Use the LNTB Preschool Program cassette tape or have a keyboard player and guitar player lead the children in singing the fire safety songs.
Include all firefighters and other community partners in the sing-along.