In Pennsylvania, all elementary homeschoolers have to learn about fire safety every year. We don’t have to teach about English or math every year (by law), but we do have to teach about fire safety. It’s that important.
Most of the homeschoolers I know struggle with how to teach fire safety appropriately. We all want easy and interesting lessons that will teach our children in a meaningful way.
Fortunately for me, I know about Sparky’s Schoolhouse, a website created by the National Fire Protection Association.
Sparky’s Schoolhouse is much more than a website. It’s a suite of lesson plans, mobile apps, and videos, all designed to capture the attention of kids and teach them about fire safety. You can search by grade level and get tailored results just for the special kid in your homeschool.
I searched for kindergarten lesson plans (more or less where Allie is), and I searched for third grade lesson plans (more or less where Grace is). I found a variety of catchy videos, coloring pages, ebooks, worksheets, and original lesson plans.
From my own classroom experience, I can tell you that the materials are really great quality. There’s a lot of good stuff there, and every elementary homeschooler will find it useful.
One of our favorite parts of the website is actually not part of the website at all. It’s the app called Sparky’s Brain Buster (which you can download in iTunes or Amazon).
Sparky’s Brain Buster is like a board game. There is a game spinner and a timer, and you have to answer enough questions right to earn 5 character tokens. I thought it would be super easy, but it wasn’t. Allie and I played together and won with only 2 seconds left!
As you can see above, the app has questions in five different categories. Some are harder than others, but rest assured that the Brain Busters app is challenging enough even for an older student. There were even questions that I didn’t know, and I am really good at trivia!
Sparky’s Brain Busters is free to download.
Here is a 7-minute video about the Great Chicago Fire to show your kids:
This is National Fire Prevention Week, so it’s a perfect time to get in your fire safety activities for the fall. Print off some pages, download the app, and get learning!
This post is sponsored by the National Fire Prevention Agency. All opinions are my own.
© 2015, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.
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