Learn to talk to your child about fire prevention with NFPA’s Sparky School House in this sponsored post.

A few weeks ago, I pulled up to my neighborhood and saw smoke coming from a building next to our home. My daughter was in the backseat of the car, so I parked down the block and quickly called 911. As we were waiting for the fire truck to show up, our neighbors started coming outside and I left the call to fill them in. When I came back to the car, my little girl was shaking and crying, she was so scared.

Within a few minutes, the fire trucks arrived. I hugged my daughter as we watched the firefighters contain a small brush fire on the side of the building. The trucks pulled out about 15 minutes after they arrived, and our neighborhood was back to normal except for the smell of smoke in the air. My daughter Ayva? Well, she wasn’t so normal.

That night she couldn’t sleep at all. She wasn’t able to eat because her stomach had so many knots. I kept her home the next day because she was so anxious about the fire the day before.

Fires are scary for everyone. They’re especially frightening for an 8-year-old with an active imagination. Every year, I take the time to go through fire safety and prevention with my daughter. I want her to feel confident in her power to prevent fires from happening in the first place. October is National Fire Prevention Month, so this is the perfect time to do a refresher and add new info as she gets older.

The best resource that I have found for teaching Ayva about fire prevention is Sparky Schoolhouse. An important initiative from SparkyTheFireDog.org and the National Fire Protection Association, there is so much helpful information on the site. Included are tools for parents and teachers to use with kids from kindergarten up through grade 5. There are crafts, music videos, and other engaging content that makes learning about fire prevention fun while still being impactful.

This year, there is also new information on for 2017 that includes how to create a fire escape route and more. You’ll find everything you need to teach fire prevention and safety at Sparky Schoolhouse.

Sparky’s Fun House App

A brand new resource from Sparky Schoolhouse is the “Sparky’s Fun House” fire prevention learning app. The app takes children through challenges to help Sparky find his way out of a carnival fun house where the smoke alarm is beeping. It drives home important lessons about fire safety through minigames and activities. Check out the game on the Sparky.org site.