Firefighters

Communication and Language

Talk with the children about the importance of listening to and following instructions when they hear a fire alarm. Practise what the children should do when the alarm sounds. Give clear instructions for them to follow. Children can play around with the sounds they hear from an emergency vehicle siren. Can children create the different siren sounds with their voices? Talk about the different siren sounds they have heard. Are they all the same?

Personal Social and Emotional 

Invite people from the local community to come and talk to the children about their job. Show the children their uniform, work badge or equipment. Some of the toys from the setting need rescuing! Can the children work as a team to find and rescue the toys from various places in the outdoor area?

Physical Development

Set up a Small World Building Site using sand, figures, fire engines and connecting bricks. Can the children help the firefighters rescue people in the tower? Enhance role-play area with firefighters themed costumes. Encourage the children to have a go at putting the costumes on themselves and trying to do buttons and zips independently. Play a ‘people who help us’ movement game. Model different actions for the children to mime. For example, climbing a ladder,

Literacy

Read people who help us themed books to the children. Encourage them to join in with repeated refrains and use the vocabulary.

Mathematics

Talk to the children about numbers that are of importance to them. Can they tell you the number on their front door? Do they know the number to ring in an emergency? Practise phoning 999 on a toy phone and saying their house number. Draw a large firefighter’s ladder on the ground in chalk. Number the rungs on the ladder to five or ten. Children can climb the ladder as they count.

Understanding of the World

Collect natural objects for the children to make themed pictures, such as fire engines or police officers.

Expressive Art and Design

Use percussion instruments to make the sound of sirens. What instruments make the loudest or quietest sounds? Emergency service vehicles often need to travel quickly when they have their sirens on. Ask the children to travel slowly around a space and when they hear the siren (possibly a tambourine), they need to travel quickly and safely. Invite the children to represent fire using a range of media. Allow them to explore the effects of combining different materials.

Focused Vocabulary

Firefighter, extinguisher, ladder, engine, smoke, alarm, 999