Kids love fire trucks. The bright colors, the flashing lights, and the loud horns are all entertaining to little ones. So a cute fire truck is a great way to introduce fire safety to young kids. So today we paired fire safety activities with an adorable children’s book about a small, but determined, fire truck.

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Flash the Little Fire Engine was written by Pam Calvert and illustrated by Jen Taylor. This adorable book follows Flash the little fire engine as he starts his first day of work. The chief says that he is ready to help the town, but at each emergency  he visits, the other trucks tell him that he isn’t big enough to help. Will he ever be able to do the job he is meant for? The story is full of sound effects that kids will love to add to the story. The vibrant and colorful illustrations highlight the cute truck and the dangerous situations that he faces.

Making Your Own Fire Hose

Bring the story to life with this fun and easy fire hose craft. Take a paper towel tube and encourage kids to decorate the outside of it with markers or firefighter themed stickers. Have kids cut different lengths of blue streamers and glue them on the inside rim of one end of the tube. When the glue dries, have kids blow through the opposite end so the streamers fly like water out of a hose.

Fireman Dramatic Play

This dramatic play game brings the story to life by allowing kids to pretend to put out fires like Flash does. First, create small flames out of cardstock or foam and add a small cardboard stand on the back of it so it stands on it’s own. Next, hide them around the room or the house. Finally, give kids their paper tube fire hoses and encourage them to search the house for them and blow down the flames with their hoses.

Related Post: Stop, Drop, and Roll Your Way to Fire Safety

Craft Stick Fire Truck

Create your own small version of Flash! Give kids plain craft sticks and have them paint them red. You could also use red dyed craft sticks. Cut another craft stick in half and lay the two pieces parallel on the table. Next, lay the red sticks perpendicular across the halved sticks and glue them together.

Have kids draw tools or symbols onto the side of the red rectangle. Next, have them draw a face on a small square of white foam or paper and glue the face onto the left side of the red rectangle. Finally, roll a gray or blue pipe cleaner and attach it to the top edge of the truck to mimic Flash’s fire hose. You can also build a ladder out of pipe cleaners to add to the side.

Fire Pattern Practice

Print out this free pattern printable and give kids a pile of small tissue paper squares in red, yellow, and orange. Have kids crumple up the tissue paper and glue it in the right order to complete the patterns. You could continue this beyond the sheet by creating your own patterns and having kids complete them. This not only helps them to practice recognizing and completing patterns, but also helps them develop their fine motor skills. You could also use dot markers to complete the patterns, or place the sheet in a plastic sleeve and use wipe off markers to draw the correctly colored flames over and over again.

Do you have a favorite children’s books about a fire truck or fire safety activities for kids? Share in the comments below!

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