A second occupation we focused on during Community Helpers Week was firefighters. I think it’s safe to say most little boys think firefighters/firetrucks are the coolest, so my kids especially loved these activities!
First up, we read Clifford the Firehouse Dog and worked on answering WH questions!
With my artic kids, we played my Tic Tac Trucks game. We used the Chipper Chat tokens to cover the pictures & the “magic wand” to pick them up. Some of the older kids got the concept of Tic-Tac-Toe, but for a lot of others, they were perfectly content just to try to cover all the pictures on the board! It worked out just fine both ways! 🙂
We also used an app called “Fire Rescue” — it’s $1.99 in the App store, and well worth the $2, in my opinion!! It is great for the preschool kids. It targets following simple directions, such as “Drive the firetruck to the house that’s on fire” and “Take the firefighter to the ladder.”
The mazes also touch on some simple problem solving– which, be the way, I always find it interesting when I do activities with my students that are similar to things I used to do as a kid (mazes, Memory, etc…) and how I have such a different perspective on them now–obviously as a kid I just thought they were fun games, but as an SLP I see them as vocabulary, problem solving, recall, etc!
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“Fire Rescue” also has these puzzle games where it gives the outline of a fire-related picture, and you have to put the puzzle pieces back in accordingly. If you just get the piece in the general vicinity of the correct location, it puts it in place for you, which I like for the younger ones! These puzzles are great for making simple predictions (“Can you tell what our puzzle is going to be?” “What do you think we’re putting together?”) and for fire-related vocabulary (fire hydrant, siren, etc…). After the puzzle is complete, the audio kicks in and gives a brief description of what the item is and what it is used for– vocab & functions right there!
The app also incorporates basic concepts into it, like the truck being empty/full of water and if you have enough/need more water. The narration also gives directives like, “Help the firefighter climb UP the ladder/climb DOWN the ladder” and “The firetruck is dirty. Let’s wash it!” and “Look, now the firetruck is sparkly clean!”
As for a fun craft with a firefighter theme… I always do Jenn’s firefighter craft that you can see here on her blog for fire safety and community helpers! I love doing crafty activities where parents can see exactly what we’ve worked on when it’s sent home.
Lastly.. for another fun fire-related activity, see my blog post from October on “spraying” out fires in the speech room!
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