Kindergarten children should be able to learn their own personal information at the start of any safety course. Teach them to write their full names and addresses, and make sure they know the names of their parents or guardians. Have them write and recite general fire-awareness terms, such as fire, firefighter, station, truck, hose, alarm, detector, smoke, emergency and telephone. Walk students through the process of dialing 9-1-1, but encourage them to call on nearby adults to help whenever smoke or fire is evident. The kids should become familiar with these basic terms before discussing fire safety protocol.
In discussions of prevention, teach kids to be aware of their own role in avoiding dangerous situations with fire. Illustrate the following words with pictures and narrative examples: matches, candle, stove, fireplace, cigarettes, burn, ashes and flame are useful words in describing what can lead to an uncontrolled fire. Train children to spot a potentially dangerous scenario based on unattended flames and alert a grownup when threats are spotted. Teach them to remind their guardians to replace fire alarm batteries twice a year.
Teach kids about safety procedure and escape tactics in the unfortunate case of a fire at school or at home. Useful vocabulary words in this category include exit, siren, crawl, escape, doorknob, plan, fire drill and route. You can bring in fire safety experts to talk about the stop, drop and roll tactic for putting out burning clothes. Your school will have an escape plan in case of fire. Have the class act it out while reciting the appropriate vocabulary words in context.
Have the children in class act out possible scenarios with classmates, consisting of dialogs using fire vocabulary and dramatic performances surrounding threatening situations. Have them build confidence for approaching adults with fire warnings in dangerous settings. Have students do arts and crafts, drawing fire-related scenes and labeling them with memorized terms. Teach about the firefighting profession and the tools professionals use in combating flames. Consider taking them outside the classroom on relevant field trips to the local fire station or campgrounds to hear experts discuss their work.