We went to Legoland last week and watched the Fun Town Fire Safety Show a few too many times. My little guy is now OBSESSED with firemen, fire trucks, fire, etc. I am so happy that we've moved beyond the bowling obsession (I was getting so bored with it). Today we channeled all of his enthusiasm for fire fighting to do this little fire fighting number recognition game 🙂
Materials Needed: red cardstock, scissors, ziploc bags (or a laminator), a hose, and painter's tape.
Directions:
1. Cut the cardstock into little flames.
2. Write numbers on each flame. I did numbers 1-10 on the front side and numbers 11-20 on the backside.
3. Laminate the flames... or if you don't have a laminator and have an impatient kid who won't wait for you to go to the store, stick the flames in ziploc bags. I used a little tape to stick them in the bag so that they wouldn't move around and would remain upright.
4. Stick the flames outside somewhere. I kinda wish our rickety wooden fence would burn down... so this was the perfect spot for our flames. I stuck them on with painter's tape.
5. Grab your hose and start spraying!
We worked on aiming the hose and we talked about the numbers while we sprayed. Either my little guy yelled which flame he was going to put out ("I'm going to spray the #3 fire") or I challenged him to spray a specific flame ("spray the #12 flame!").
For older kids, this could be a fun way to practice mental math facts over the summer (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division). Make all the flames the sums of the math facts (For example, one flame could be #10, for 5+5 and 6+4 and 7+3 and 5x2, 100/10). Stick them up and then yell a number sentence. The child has to add the numbers together (or multiple, divide... or whatever) and spray the correct sum!
I'd practice my math facts all summer if I got to use a hose! 🙂
The activity ended with some time cleaning every single toy in the backyard with the hose.
We are so excited that it is finally warm enough here to be playing in the backyard with water!!
This is such a great idea. And absolutely precious!
Good idea! It's fun to play with the hose!