Our First Fire Drill Inspired....

AFS Lower School experienced their first fire drill this week and the children handled the experience beautifully!  We had prepared the children for the first drill and discussed what a fire drill was, what sounds we may hear to tell us the fire drill is starting and what we need to do when we hear the fire bell.  Immediately, and quite enthusiastically Marcellus joined the discussion and shared lots of important information about fire safety.  Marcellus' Mom and Dad are both firefighters and he confidently shared so many personal experiences and facts!  The children were both interested and reassured by their friend Marcellus' insights and words!

Later the same morning we had our visit to the Library with one of our librarians Helen. Library experiences are wonderful ways to support and connect the interests and work that we are exploring in our classrooms. We had informed Helen of our exciting morning experiencing our first fire drill as well as one of our areas of interest thus far this year which is building community.  Helen prepared a fantastic library session for our children beginning with reading aloud a book on Fire Fighters-Community Helpers!  The simple, colorful photographs depicted  basic aspects of what the world of a fire fighter may look like.  The huge boots, coats, gloves, engines....were just a few of the photographs that captured the interest of the children.  A discussion followed about "what it means to help someone and be called a community helper..who are other people who live in our community and help us..".

Helen read a second book titled Kitten  red yellow blue by, Peter Catalanotto which was a delightful story about 16 kittens who went on a adventure and each one had an encounter with a community helper! What a perfect story for our children who happen to also LOVE kittens!

 The library shelves are filled with wonderful puppets and the children enjoyed playing with the puppets during the last part of our visit!