Fire Safety Month on the Carpet, in Your Ears and in Boston

Posted by Jeff on October 2, 2013 at 9:40 am

My relationship with fire is pretty fluid: I was a mild pyromaniac in my youth, discovered a fire in my home as a tween, and today as an adult I refuse to throw away a match that hasn’t soaked in the sink for 24 hours.

October is Fire Prevention Month. Next week is Fire Prevention Week. Are you ready?

I’ve never really done it, nothing more than a caveman-ish “fire = hot / stay away” anyway, but I should. My kids, all kids, need to understand the power and danger inherent in fire, and how to stay safe when working with the flame. LEGO can help. Which makes sense, because LEGO can help with just about everything.

The LEGO City line offers kids and their conversationally challenged grown-ups an opportunity to build and chat about fire trucks, firefighters, cats stuck in trees, and buildings safely ablaze. This makes sense for a couple of reasons: 1) playtime is fun, 2) fun is a clever way to casually broach sensitive topics with nuance. Sure, you could lecture a 4-year-old on fire safety, classroom style, but you could also get down on the carpet and build the LEGO City Fire Truck, for example, and slide in some key messaging (see below for help with that.) The latter idea seems more productively awesome, right?

Download the free NFPA Fire Prevention Week app and ebook for kids, and these great activities and printables. And check out the clever LEGO City Fire Safety Tips pdf complete with minifigs!

Firefighters are, generally speaking, tremendous people doing work that goes under-appreciated by the masses until, of course, they are desperately needed, when a life and/or a lifetime of memories might hang in the balance. Ever wonder what those heroic gals & guys do when they are not putting out fires or whipping up homemade chilli in the firehouse? Chicago kindie band Poochamungas, the musical outlet of fireman John Joyce and his brave pals, has one answer: sometimes, they rock. Block Party!, the band’s new album, is out next week and while it doesn’t bust through the door with fire safety tips (thankfully, as that would make for hideous music) there is a song called “Big Red” that isn’t about chewing gum and other tunes like “My Favorite Summer Day (Block Party)” and “Games We Played” that might extend the sunsplashed joys of summer by a few months, if only in your mind.

Oh, one more thing on the LEGO City Fire front…Got plans to be in or near Boston this weekend? Good, ’cause there’s a sweet LEGO City building event happening at the Boston Fire Museum on Saturday, giving kids a chance to connect some bricks alongside a LEGO Master Builder and get fire safety tips from directly from real life firefighters. More info on this free LEGO event below.

LEGO City and National Fire Prevention Association Building Event
Saturday 10/5, 10am – 4pm
Boston Fire Museum (344 Congress Street Boston, MA)

You and your kids can work with an actual LEGO Master Builder to build a giant LEGO CITY Fire Department fire badge, get your picture taken with a 6’ LEGO CITY firefighter made entirely of bricks, explore the 3’ LEGO CITY block diorama, and pick up some vital fire prevention practices from real life firefighter.