Today’s lesson is geared to help teach the concept of fire safety to young children. I hope this lesson can be of use to youth ministries, youth counselors, parents and grandparents.

The challenge of this kind a lesson is to teach the dangers of fire without including fire itself. For sometimes a flame be very alluring and you can accomplish the opposite of what you intended by making fire look attractive to young child.

Object of the lesson should be:

–        A couple of photos of homes and neighborhoods before and after a fire.

–        A couple of photos of forest before and after fire, plus forest creatures.

–        Some photos of people that have been hurt by fires, but not too scary.

–        A chair.

–        Different clothing of various members of the family, particularly coats and items of heavy material.

–        A rock or brick.

–        An egg.

Gather your children into your family room. Distribute photographs amongst the family of the beauty of the forest and the beauty of the neighborhoods before a fire. Maybe discuss how long it takes to make things look pretty and how long it takes for trees to grow or to build a house. Maybe discuss how a father and mother will save money to purchase a home or to rent an apartment. Remind the family of all the various pleasant activities that have taken place inside the home. Give specific examples of how pleasant it is to live in a home and to enjoy the beauty of a forest. If you’ve had a chance to go camping, discuss the virtues of visiting nature and enjoying the homes of various animals that live in the forest.

Now start talking about the dangers of fire. The sometimes a fire can start small thing and appears under control. Sometimes, when there is fuel for the fire, it can quickly burn out-of-control and it’s hard to stop it.

Now show photos of the damage homes, neighborhoods, force and people that have been hurt by fire. You might even show a video from the Internet of unhappy family has lost the home. Some fires are not intentional, and were not caused by humans. They may have been started by a lightning bolt. Sometimes a fire is started intentionally by a mean person or while children are playing with fire, and it may burn out-of-control. Maybe give some specific examples of how a fire may spread.

Discussed some of the techniques used to keep a campfire safe. Discuss how adults contain would properly within a fireplace in a home. Maybe show how glass around a lamp helps keep us safe.

But the best way to keep one safe with fire, especially when very young, is to not be involved with fire at all. Fire should be handled only by adults. To show how fire can be so powerful, try the following object lesson:

Have one of the children hold up a kitchen chair. Have him hold it directly in front of himself with his arms extended until he is arms start getting tired. As he is holding the chair, you can make a comparison of the heaviness of the chair is like the sudden inability to control a fire. No matter how hard you try, you can’t keep hold in the chair up because your arms are tired. Just like tired arms, sometimes a fire is hard to stay confined. It can lose control.

When the child tires holding the chair, have him sit down and choose another child to hold a chair. Now in the early part of holding the chair, it’s easy. But this time, as soon as the child starts holding the chair, began hanging a bunch of clothes on the legs of the chair so that the chair quickly becomes too heavy to hold. Emphasize again, that just as a child must lower the chair, because it is too heavy, so a fire can be suddenly burn out-of-control.

To help bring this point home have the family gathered around the kitchen sink. Hold a rock over one of the raw eggs. Ask the child: What will happen if I drop this rock in that egg in the sink?

If they don’t know, explain how the rock is bigger and heavier than the egg and it will crush the egg when it lands on the egg. Illustrate that by dropping the rock on the egg and crushes the egg. Talk about how the egg was perfect to cook before you broke it with a rock. But now we can’t cook it because the shell and the yoke are all mixed together. It’s ruined. Wisdom is that we know that we want to avoid dropping and rock on an egg, because we know the consequences or end result. We know it’s dangerous to the egg. And just like we don’t want to drop a rock on an egg, so you don’t want to play with matches or lighters because of the danger that can happen with fire.

Another way you might be able to bring this point home is that before the family devotional, or family home evening, talk about having an evening breakfast. Talk about all the wonderful things shall have, but that the central dish must be egg related. This might mean either omelets or quiche or fried bacon and eggs, or whatever the family enjoys that is egg related. But during the lesson everyone takes a turn dropping a brick to break an egg. After the lesson you show that you can’t have the plan breakfast because essential ingredient is now missing, the eggs. By breaking all the eggs with the brick you’ll have to change your supper. And this in turn teaches another way of consequence. Instead of a fancy breakfast, you’ll have a substandard breakfast, such as milk and toast.

I hope this lesson can be of use to teach fire safety. This concept may need to be taught in various ways throughout a child’s life. This lesson is dedicated to President Monson.

If you have found a successful way to teach your children safety, please feel free to share it in the comment section this blog. Thank you.