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Be a Smoke
Detective!
Preschool children need to experience smoke firsthand— what it smells and looks
like—in order for the message get low and go under smoke to have any meaning. They
also need to practice crawling under smoke. National preschool fire safety educators
shared with CTW how they’ve been able to effectively teach children to be “smoke
detectives”—to recognize smoke, and to get under and away from it:
| A trusted teacher or adult can begin simply
by lighting a candle, blowing it out, and having the children watch the smoke. Explain
that the candle’s little flame makes a small amount of smoke, but a big fire in a
building makes a lot of smoke. |
Teach children that when there’s fire and smoke in
a building, there is “bad” air higher up in the room and “good” air
lower to the floor, if they are ever in a fire, they’ll want to breathe the
“good” air, so they’ll need to get below the smoke and “bad”
air—and that’s why you’re all practicing get low and go. if there is a fire
safety expert present, have him or her set off real smoke detectors as each child crawls. |
| Use a blanket as “smoke” and,
stretching it between you and another adult, wave it slightly a few feet above the ground
for a rolling smoke effect. Starting at one end, have children one-by-one practice getting
low, then crawling under the smoke to the other end—to safety. |
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| The smell of smoke can linger on firefighting equip ment
after a fire. When you visit a fire station as a group, ask children if they can smell the
strong odor when they stand near those items, such as the fans which are used to clear
smoke from a building after a fire. |
NOTE: Avoid crawling under regular
classroom furniture (such as tables). Practicing with objects preschoolers see every day
may confuse the children and lead to misconceptions about when to get low and go. |
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