Learning about the Alphabet: F is for Fire Safety

Over the course of twenty-six posts, I will introduce my own simple lessons for the letters of the alphabet. I will provide enough ideas and suggestions for a week's worth of activities.  

For the letter F, we focused upon Fire Safety.

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Coloring Pages 

Mom Junction's Firefighter Coloring Pages 
There is a collection of pages that one can print for their children to color in firefighters, fire trucks, and more.

Projects 

Fireman Hand Print Craft 

Tots and Me...Growing Up Together featured this cute hand print craft on their blog for Fire Prevention Week. I have seen multiple versions of it on Pinterest and the Internet but I really like seeing the process with step-by-step photographs.

From Tots and Me...Growing Up Together

My Mommy Style's Letter of the Day: F is for Fire
This is a simple craft that only requires glue, construction paper, a pencil, and tissue paper. I love it!

Books 

Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill 

 

This book addresses many fire safety tips and introduces different facts about a variety of animals. Our children made several flamingo crafts to accompany the book.

Here are some other children's books about fire safety for you to check out!

Featured Shape

Construction Paper Shape Firetruck 

Tots and Me...Growing Up Together offers a perfect craft for your children to learn about different shapes while talking about fire safety and firetrucks. What I also like about this craft is that for older children you can have them work on measuring and cutting skills to prepare the shapes to build their firetrucks.

Activities

Fire Safety Plan 

We have set a plan in place for where to meet in case we ever need to evacuate our home due to an emergency. This is a simple activity to practice together with your family.

Fire Safety Tips 

Go over with your children the different home fire prevention tips and practices. Have your children help test smoke alarms, make sure lighters and matches are out of the reach of your children, and practice "stop, drop, and roll" with your children.

Take a look at the following sites for some tips and ideas to share with your family:

National Fire Protection Association Fire Prevention Week
American Red Cross Home Fire Safety

And don't forget to be in touch with your local fire department for additional local resources.

Other Topics

Flowers

Crafts: Spring Flowers
We made beautiful flowers with tissue paper and glue recently.

Crafty Morning's How to Make Paper Tulips - Easy Kids Craft 
I like how simple this craft is - few materials are needed to create this pretty tulip. And you can modify it to make other flowers if you are creative.

The Best Ideas for Kids' Toiler Paper Roll Flowers Craft 
These bright flowers are perfect to decorate for a floral-themed party.

Flamingos 

  

We made these crafts to accompany Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill.

Frogs 

Homeschool Preschool's 19 Fabulous Frog Crafts for Preschoolers 
This round-up has everything from paper plate crafts to food-related crafts to teach your young ones about frogs.

Resources 

Sand In My Toes' Busy Hands: Fire Truck Shape Craft
This offers another option to create using shapes like rectangles and circles.

Royal Baloo's Fire Safety PreK Pack
Offers a variety of worksheets to work on different skills with your toddlers while talking about fire safety.

The Printable Princess' Fire Safety Activities and Centers for Kindergarten
There are many different books, crafts, and ideas offered on this site.

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Book Club: Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill

This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

We are talking about flamingos as part of our art study, so we picked out Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill by Jamie Harper from our library.

While the book's real focus is Fire Safety Week, it also provides lots of information regarding the different animals in the classroom and their reaction to danger.

I think my daughter's favorite pages were those that discussed primary versus secondary routes because there was a map with a legend. She wanted to find each location on the map before we continued the story.

The book talks about pandas, elephants, birds, alligators, flamingos, proboscis monkeys, koalas, hognose snakes, pigs, octopi, and three-banded armadillos.  For example, the author provides details on how the koala howls and wails when they are upset and startled pigs run and hide when they are frightened.

Among the fire safety tips included is that of "Stop! Drop! and Roll!" My children enjoyed us taking a break from reading the book and acting it out on the floor.

Flamingo Activities 

Flamingos are really interesting birds due to some unique features.  They are not born pink but instead gain the pink color to the feathers due to the food they eat. The pink color comes from beta carotene, a red-orange pigment, that is found in high quantities in the food that flamingos eat: shrimp, algae, plankton, and larvae found in the wetlands. 

Another unique feature is the design of the flamingo's beak. The curve of their beak and neck allows them to dip their beak into the water and mud scooping up water, mud, shrimp, algae, and other possible foods.  They have a built in filtration system which allows them to remove the water while keeping the food in their mouth. They are filter feeders similar to whales who use their baleen to capture shrimp in their mouths. The flamingos use their lamellae, thin platelike structures, to filter their food. These structures are found lining their mandibles.

Beads and Buttons Craft 

Materials 

• Cardboard (I used recycled cereal boxes) 
• Image or drawing of a flamingo
• Scissors
• White glue
• Craft glue
• Red, white, pink paint
• Paintbrushes
• Pom-poms
• Buttons
• Beads
• Crayons 

Steps 

1. Gather your materials. We made our own flamingos with mixed media.

2. I drew a profile of a flamingo on cardboard and cut it out.

3. Paint your flamingos pink.

 4. After they were dry we glued pom-poms, buttons, and beads onto the flamingos.

Flamingo Mask 

Materials 

• Cardboard
• Flamingo mask 
• Craft glue
• White glue
• Scissors
• Paintbrushes
• White, red, pink paint
• Crayons 
• Feathers 
• Markers 

Steps

1. Gather all the materials.

2. I found a flamingo mask on MaskSpot.com and traced it onto cardboard.

3. We painted the masks pink using things other than just paintbrushes.

4. After the masks were dry, I cut out eyes, so they could be used as masks.

5. We drew the beak using markers.

6. My children then glued on their feathers.

7. After the glue has dried, the masks were ready for my children to play with them.

In a future post, I will share some craft ideas for teaching about Fire Safety.

Fire Safety Week Resources 

Sand In My Toes' Busy Hands: Fire Truck Shape Craft 
My Mommy Style's Letter of the day: F is for Fire
The Stuff We Do's Fire Safety Week
Homechool Preschool's Fun and Fabulous Firefighter Printables for Preschoolers

Flamingo Resources 

Glued To My Crafts' Handprint Flamingo Painting 
Glued To My Crafts' Popsicle Stick Flamingo
Crafty Morning's Easy Handprint Flamingo Craft for Kids 

I joined up with the following blog(s):