How to Teach Kids Safety With Puppets in Sarasota, Florida
With its location on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Sarasota experiences an annual hurricane season from the end of November to the end of May. Safety practices for natural storms are commonly taught to children such as which room in the house is the safest and how to prepare for a storm. Safe boating is another important lesson for Sarasota children to learn. And, as with most children throughout the U.S., Sarasota kids need to learn how to handle "stranger danger" and the threat of fire. So many lessons to learn; and teachers and instructors are challenged to keep kids' attention during such classes. To that end, consider the use of puppets to teach Sarasota kids safety in a fun and captivating way.
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Things You'll Need
- Puppets (hand and stringed)
- Puppet stage
- Yellow plastic sheets
- Toy boat
- Small toys as props
Instructions
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Hand puppets can be used to teach the safety lessons of not playing with matches and what to do if something catches on fire. The stop-drop-and-roll method and how to crawl to safety in a burning smoke-filled room can both be better demonstrated by puppets without strings.
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Demonstrate with puppets how to establish a safe home. Talk about the dangers of the household chemicals and how one can become sick and even die from ingesting them. Inject some fun into the script: Have a puppet fly in the sky after tripping over a toy left on the stairs. The children will be amused and also learn an important safety lesson. Use the puppets in a role play about "stranger danger" and what a child should do if confronted or followed by an adult.
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Write a puppet show for stringed puppets that tells how to ready for a hurricane. Demonstrate the importance of clearing away lawn furniture, trash cans, hoses and potted plants before a hurricane hits. A hurricane's high winds can turn those items into dangerous projectiles. Talk about having enough bottled water and stored food to last a week for every person in the house.
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Create a water-safety program using hand puppets and toy boats. Create a flotation device out of a yellow sheet of plastic. Fold the sheet in half and cut a "U" shape. The bottom of the "U" will be on the fold. The puppets need to demonstrate the importance of wearing the personal safety devices all the time while in the boat or near the water. The puppets can demonstrate how to doggy paddle in case someone has fallen from a boat without a flotation device.
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Tips & Warnings
Volunteer with or contact the Sarasota Fire Department and County Library System to gather material as well as find venues to bring puppet-safety programs to the children of Sarasota.
References
- Photo Credit Puppet image by Tomasz Pawlowski from Fotolia.com
