My Little Red Fire Truck

           Our trip to the fire station may have gotten cancelled, but we still had fun pretending to be fire fighters. Pauline read a book called “My Little Red Fire truck” by Stephen T. Johnson. It was so cool as we learned about the different tools and equipment they have in fire trucks. The first page talks about how fire fighters need to be ready at any time of the day, and they always need to make a list of important things they need to do.

“Check……. Fire… truck…” Pauline trailed off, as she wrote on the book (Yes, the book has a special notepad you can write on— and then it gets magically erased!).

“Check….. Maybe wheels?” She suggested, and wrote them down again. “What else can we check?” she asked us.

“Hmm… check the fire extinguisher!” H said.

“That’s a great idea!” Pauline said, and wrote it down. “Does anyone know what that is?” she asked. A lot of us shook our heads no, so Kai brought out the one for our floor and showed us. It was a red tank with a hose on the side. The grown-ups can use it to put out a fire, if ever there’s one.

After making a list, we need to fill up the tank with fuel. Our teachers said that fuel is like food for cars, trucks, vans, airplanes— it makes them go. They usually go to a gas station to fill up on fuel. There was a big picture of a gasoline pump that we can detach from the book, and we can use it to pretend that we are filling up the fire truck with fuel. Cool!

Thee was also a picture of the tire gauge that we can use to check the air in the tires. We also packed away some important tools like the pickaxe (used to break the strongest materials), hydrant wench (used to remove hydrant caps– its from the fire hydrant where the water need for the hose comes from), and the Halligan tool (used to open doors and walls, especially if there’s someone stuck inside a room and they can’t get out). We also used a key to turn on the ignition, and there was even a steering wheel and we pretended to drive the truck. There was also a radio that we can use to communicate with Dispatch (Dispatch is 911 in the U.S.A. and Canada; 119 in Japan).

Before we went to the park, our teachers said that we can also practice some techniques that the fire fighters use when they rescue people– we had Manju to help us out. We’re going to pretend that Manju is stuck in the fire, and we need to carry him out of the burning building.

We got to the green area and Kai taught us different ways how firemen rescue people and carry them. One was we can pull them by their shoulders, and then there’s the fireman’s carry were we can carry them on our backs, there’s also something called the one– person lift (it was like carrying a baby), and a two– person drag (Manju’s arms were slung over two rescuers). It was quite easy carrying Manju because he was filled with hay, but the hay started to come out and Manju’s torso got separated from his bottom half. Oopsie. While Kai fixed up Manju, we chased each other around the green area.

We also had our music class today with John– John. We sang “Down by the Bay” again, and we made up lyrics again for the song, like:

“Have you ever seen a pumpkin eating a bamboo?” Z asked.

“A raptor smashing a lion?” Z said.

“A vampire in a party?” K said.

“A cat eating a pumpkin?” K volunteered.

“A goat smashing a rock?” K said.

For the next part, John borrowed one of our baby dolls, and we sang a lullaby to help the baby sleep.

“We have to get the bedding to put the baby to bed,” H said. Z generously offered his sleeping bag.

We also sang some Skidamarink, and some Halloween songs.

“We have a pumpkin behind the door. We have Halloween decorations at home!” S proudly told us.

Free play time was filled with lots of painting– we were painting with Sayaka as we finished our wonderful Otsukimi artwork, and we were also painting a box green.

“Why are we painting this green?” N asked. Our teachers said that it was for Halloween and it was going to be a surprise. Hmm! We can’t wait for Halloween!

That’s all for today– we hope you had a wonderful Wednesday, too!

Love,

All the happy children in Petals Class