Safety Activities for Preschoolers That Actually Stick

Preschoolers learn safety the same way they learn everything else: with their bodies, in short bursts, and by doing the same thing more than once. A safety lesson that is mostly talking slides right past a four year old. A safety lesson where they drop and roll across the rug sticks.

These ten activities cover the topics on a standard preschool safety wall: fire, trusted adults, water, germs and the playground. Each one takes a few minutes and rehearses a rule from published pediatric or child safety guidance. This is general teaching information, not a substitute for advice from your pediatrician, your fire department or your school's safety team.

What makes a safety activity work for preschoolers?

It is short, it is physical, and it rehearses an action rather than a fear.

Three tests are worth running on any activity before you use it:

• Does the child do something? Rolling, crawling, yelling, scrubbing. Listening is not an action.
• Is the rule one sentence? "Stop, drop and roll" works. A paragraph about how clothing catches fire does not.
• Does it end with the child safe and proud? Every rehearsal should finish with "you did it right," never with the scary part.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children makes the case for practice directly in its KidSmartz guidance for parents and teachers: the more children practice, the better prepared they will be in a real situation. That line is about personal safety, but it holds for every topic below. One run-through is an introduction. Five run-throughs across a month is a skill.

What are the best fire safety activities for preschoolers?

Stop, drop and roll, a crawl-low tunnel, and a two-ways-out map. Fire is the right place to start, because it has the clearest physical rules.

The American Academy of Pediatrics' fire safety guidance says even young children, 3 and older, can begin to learn what to do in case of a fire. Our Fire Safety chart draws four scenes a pre-reader can follow: if your clothes catch fire, crawl low under smoke, know two ways out, and get outside, stay outside, then tell a trusted adult.

1. Stop, drop and roll freeze game. Play music and let children move around the rug. When the music stops, call out "Your sleeve is on fire!" and everyone does the full sequence: stop where you are, drop to the ground, cover your face with your hands, and roll over and over. The AAP adds two steps after the roll that older preschoolers can say out loud: cool the burned area with water, then call for help. Praise the children who stopped first, not the ones who rolled fastest. Stopping is the part that is hardest to remember when a child is scared.

2. Crawl-low smoke tunnel. String gray crepe paper streamers between two rows of small chairs to make a "smoke" ceiling, and have children crawl through on hands and knees to a door taped on the far wall. The AAP's guidance is to crawl with the head less than 2 feet above the floor, because cleaner air is near the floor, so set the streamers at about that height and anyone who stands up "bumps the smoke." This is the activity children ask to do again.

3. Two ways out map. Give each child a large sheet of paper with a simple house outline and have them draw their bedroom door and window as the two ways out, plus a tree or mailbox as the family meeting place. The AAP recommends two ways out of every room and an agreed meeting spot outside, and it says children should learn that firefighters are friends and never something to hide from. Send the map home with a note asking families to practice their own drill. The full fire lesson, including what NFPA says about smoke alarms, is in our guide to fire safety for kids.

What personal safety activities work at this age?

Ones that build a short list of trusted adults and a loud, confident voice, without ever describing a bad person. Our guide to teaching kids personal safety without scaring them explains why "stranger danger" is no longer the recommended lesson. These activities are the practice half.

4. Trusted adult hands. Trace each child's hand on cardstock. On each finger, write the name of one grown-up the child can go to: a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, the school nurse. Five fingers is a natural limit, and it makes the point that a child has more than one person to tell. The Personal Safety chart opens with the same idea in its Your Circle box, "Know your trusted adults by name and number," and its dry-erase surface lets you write the class list straight onto it. (In the Classroom Safety Charts 10 Pack the same design is titled Stranger Safety.)

5. Three voices game. Practice a library voice, an outside voice and a safety voice. The safety voice is the loudest the child has, used with feet planted and one hand up: "NO! STOP!" Children who have been told all year to use an inside voice need explicit permission to be loud, and a game is the gentlest way to give it. The chart's Say No and Yell For Help boxes match this activity.

6. Check first role play. Use a puppet as the grown-up. The puppet offers a sticker, asks for help finding a lost puppy, or says "come with me." The child answers with the line KidSmartz recommends practicing in a firm voice, "I can't go with you until I check with my teacher," then walks over to the real teacher. KidSmartz lists offering something desirable and asking a child for help among the common tricks, and its fix for the help trick is a rule children can say back: adults should ask other adults for help, not children. The puppet keeps it playful; the walk to the teacher is the rehearsal.

Which water safety activity works indoors?

"Reach or throw, don't go," practiced on a pretend pond.

7. Pretend pond rescue. Spread a blue blanket on the floor as the water and put a stuffed animal in the middle. Children stand on the "shore" and try to help it without stepping onto the blanket, first by reaching out with a pool noodle, then by throwing a hula hoop or a soft ring for it to "hold." The American Red Cross lists reach or throw, don't go among the safe ways to assist someone in the water, and the point for a preschooler is the last word: a child never goes in after anyone. The Red Cross also says to always swim with a buddy, which is the second rule to practice.

The Water Safety chart covers the rules a child can own: swim with adult supervision, wear the right life jacket, walk, don't run near the pool, learn to swim, and stay in designated swim areas. Water is also the topic where the adult's part is biggest. The AAP's drowning prevention guidance recommends staying within arm's length, constant touch supervision, whether it is bath time or swim time, and no activity on a classroom rug changes that.

How do you make handwashing a game?

Twenty seconds of scrubbing to a song, with something visible to wash off.

8. Glitter germs. Put a little lotion and a pinch of fine glitter on each child's hands as pretend germs. Let them shake hands or pass a ball, then show how the glitter spread. At the sink, they scrub until it is gone. The AAP's handwashing guidance, which follows the CDC's steps, says to keep rubbing and scrubbing for 20 seconds and suggests picking a song that lasts that long. It also lists when to wash: before eating, after the bathroom, after coming in from playing outdoors, and after touching an animal. Children remember the glitter long after they forget the list, so post the list where they wash. Our Germ Awareness chart hangs above the sink for exactly that reason.

How do kids learn their address and phone number?

As a song, sung often. This one is short, but it is the activity that pays off in every other topic.

9. The address song. Set the child's full name, a parent's name, the phone number and the street address to a tune they already know. The AAP says children should know their home address and that the emergency number should be known by heart, so a firefighter or a 911 operator can be told where to come. Send the words home so families sing the same version. Nemours KidsHealth's guide to 911 for kids explains that an operator will ask what happened, where you are and who needs help, which is exactly what the song answers. The step-by-step pretend 911 call is in our guide to classroom emergency posters, along with the boo-boo, nurse or 911 sorting game. For what a child should do with that number if they get separated from a grown-up in a store or a park, see what to teach kids if they get lost.

What about the playground?

Walk the rules before the first recess, at the equipment itself.

10. Look before you jump walk. Take the class out to the playground and stop at the slide, the swings and the climber. At each one, ask which rule goes with it and have one child show it: sit and slide feet first, walk the wide way around a moving swing, look down before jumping off. The Playground Safety chart has the five rules as pictures a pre-reader can match. The full lesson, with the AAP's surfacing and supervision checklist for adults, is in playground safety rules for kids.

How do you run a preschool safety week?

One topic a day, five minutes of activity, and a review on Friday.

A few things make the week go better:

• Keep the chart and the activity together. Do the activity right in front of the chart, then point to the matching picture. The chart becomes the reminder the rest of the year.
• Use the dry-erase surface. Circle the rule you practiced today, add a check mark when a child can say it back, and write names into the Your Circle box. Wipe it clean for the next class.
• Stop while it is still fun. If a child gets upset, end the activity with the safe ending ("and then the grown-up came and everyone was okay") and move on.
• Repeat after breaks. A two-minute replay of the freeze game after winter break does more than a new lesson.

For a younger group, cut each day to one activity. For pre-K children heading to kindergarten, add the boo-boo, nurse or 911 sort from the Boo-Boo Helpers chart on Thursday.

What stays the adult's job?

Everything a preschooler cannot do reliably, which is most of the physical protection.

The AAP is direct about the limits: parents of children younger than 5 must plan on an adult rescuing them in a house fire, because they are too young to reliably rescue themselves, even though children 3 and older can start learning what to do. Smoke alarms, fences and gates, touch supervision near water and watching the playground all stay with grown-ups. The activities give a child their part; they do not hand over yours. Our personal safety guide has the full table of what a child can carry and what stays with the adult.

Where should the safety charts go?

At preschool eye height, next to where the activity happens, not in a display case.

The Fire Safety chart works by the classroom door you use for drills, the Germ Awareness chart above the sink, and the Personal Safety and Water Safety charts in the circle-time area where you run the role plays. If you want the whole set in one place, the Classroom Safety Charts 10 Pack includes all eight charts used in this post plus a Safety Corner banner, and our guide to setting up a safety corner covers mounting height and layout. If you are deciding between that and a calm down space, read safety corner vs. calming corner. Browse every chart in the safety corner collection.