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Grades 4–5 · Home Alone Ready · Badge 4

Things that get hot

Spot the habits that start kitchen fires and unplug a toaster properly.

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Step 1 of 9

1Look

A kitchen, mid-afternoon

Still image

A kitchen, mid-afternoon

A pan on the hob with its handle sticking out over the edge, a tea towel draped over the oven door next to a lit ring, a bread bag on top of the toaster, and a kettle cord dangling off the counter.

There are six things wrong here. You will find them in a minute. First, why they are wrong.

2The idea

Kettles, toasters, stoves

Three things get hot in a kitchen. Kettle: the cord is the danger. Snag it and a litre of boiling water follows. Cord back, not dangling. Toaster: nothing on top of it, never a knife in it, and off at the wall before you poke anything.

Stove: the big one. Nothing on the stove you walk away from. Not to answer the phone, not to get the door, not for a minute. If you have to leave the room, the ring goes off first. A pan does not need long alone to become a fire.

3The idea

Handles in, cloth away

A handle out over the edge is a handle that gets caught by a sleeve or a little brother, and the pan comes with it. Turn it in, over the counter, every time.

A tea towel near a hot ring is how kitchen fires start. Cloth, paper, a plastic bag, oven gloves left on the hob. A ring stays hot after it is off, and a towel on it does not need a flame. Nothing that can burn lives within an arm’s length of the stove.

4The idea

Priya makes toast

The bread bag is on the toaster. She moves it. The toast sticks. Off at the wall, wait, tip it out. No fork. The kettle cord hangs over the edge; she tucks it back. A tea towel is on the oven door by the ring her mum used at lunch. Off, but she hangs the towel on the hook anyway.

Nothing happened. That is the whole story. Kitchen safety is a list of things that did not happen, and you are the one who made them not happen.

5Find them

Six things wrong in one kitchen

Interactive

Hazard hunt

The kitchen from the first card. Tap the six things that are wrong. Each one you find shows a two-second clip of what it turns into if nobody fixes it.

The tea towel is the one most kids miss. It looks like it belongs there.

6Decide

Toast is stuck. What is first?

Off at the wall first. Then it is just a metal box with bread in it, and you can tip it or fish it out however you like. The order is the whole thing.

Anything that goes into a toaster that is still plugged in can meet the wires. A fork is metal. Tipping it while it is live is the same problem from a different angle. Plug out, wait, then deal with the toast.

Pick one to carry on.

7Say it

The toaster rule

Say it like you are reminding somebody

“Off at the wall, then touch it.”

It works for the toaster, the kettle, the blender, anything with a plug.

8Find them

Which of these are how a kitchen fire starts?

Tap the ones that count.

Find all 4.

9Do it

Before you leave this page

With a parent watching, show them how you would unplug the toaster properly: hand on the plug, not the cord, toaster cold. Then put the kettle cord where it should be.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Handles turned in. Nothing on the stove you walk away from. Nothing cloth near heat.

Next lesson: Knives

Badge 4 · Feeding Yourself

4.1Cold food is your friend 4.2Things that get hot 4.3Knives 4.4Choking ★Badge Challenge

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