Play and Learn with Mama: Trip to the Fire Station

One of the mothers in a local online homeschooler's group I belong to, recently arranged a trip to our local fire station, and the Little Joyful's had a ton of fun there! Here are a few highlights from the very chilly, but super-exciting morning!!

He was fascinated by the friendly fireman demonstrating how the jaws of life work!!

If you've missed any of my previous posts, be sure to also check out the Fire Fighter Lapbook we made, and our fun Fire Truck snack!

Play and Learn with Mama: Fire Truck Snack

This was such a simple, sweet little treat - way more sugar that they are ever allowed, but hence the word 'treat'!! This is our version of a Fire Engine snack I first saw here.

We used a lovely home-baked bread that my husband made the night before, as well as..

Strawberry Jam

Mini Shortbread cookies for the engine's window

Chocolate covered cookie rings for the wheels (the original used Oreos)

A glace cherry for the red light

Pretzel sticks for the ladder

I had prepared an example beforehand, and placed all the little bits and pieces on individual plates for the Little Joyfuls to build their own engines.

Delight!!

Play and Learn with Mama: Fire Fighter Lap Book

   I have been meaning to do a few weeks of Play and Learn activities with a community helpers theme for a while now, so when a mom in our local home schooler's group recently arranged a visit to the fire station, it was the perfect opportunity to jump right in with some fun activities!

   We started with a very simple lap book:

For the cover I printed a paper doll and fire fighter outfit from Making Friends. I coloured and cut it out for Sweetpea the night before, and she then had fun 'dressing' her fire fighter in the correct sequence.

  The next day we revised the order in which a fire fighter dresses for a fire emergency by discussing this picture I printed from here . I had made an extra copy, and Sweetpea then glued the pictures in the correct sequence into a mini book.

  We also had lots of giggles as we practiced Stopping, Dropping and Rolling, after we had discussed this picture, also from the resource above. (Click here.)

  There are some amazing free fire fighter printables available online, but since most of them are English, I designed and laminated a few of my own. Carissa over at 1+1+1=1 has a great post full of tips on how to create your own printables for lap books and tot packs. You can check it out here. Ours included:

  Size Sorting:

  Counting from 1 to 5:

  Letter practice:

 Pre-writing exercises and Matching pairs (and learning some interesting new words in the process!):

{Note: I will gladly e-mail you these printables to you if you're interested - just leave me a comment.}

  I also laminated these pages I printed out from Club Fire Facts.

I cut off the top of a manila envelope and glued it to the back cover of our lap book to keep the laminated pages together.