Ready Kids › Home Alone Ready › Badge 5 › Lesson 5.1
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Stopping one starting
Name the three things that start house fires and unplug what is not being used.
1Look
A bedroom at four
A bedroom at four
A phone charging on a bed with the corner of a pillow over it, a hoodie hung over a lamp, and a small electric heater running beside a curtain.
Nothing is on fire. Everything is ready to be.
2The idea
The three that actually start house fires
Nearly all house fires start one of three ways. The kitchen: something on the stove left alone. Chargers and batteries: a phone charging under a pillow or inside a duvet, where the heat cannot get out. Cloth near heat: a hoodie on a lamp, a towel on an electric heater, a curtain touching one.
You already know the kitchen one. The other two live in your bedroom, and you are the only person who goes in there. Kitchen. Chargers under pillows. Cloth near heat. Those three.
3The idea
Unplug what you are not using
Straighteners left on. A heater running in an empty room. A lamp with a hoodie on it. The habit is simple: not using it, switch it off at the wall. Not the fridge, not the router. The small hot things.
Charge on a hard surface: a desk, a shelf, the floor. Not the bed, not the sofa. Let it breathe. A phone under a pillow cannot get rid of its heat, and heat that cannot leave is how a fire starts.
4Say it
The habit, in five words
Say it as you would say it to yourself, leaving a room
“Not using it. Unplug it.”
Every time you leave a room with something hot in it. It takes two seconds.
5The idea
Sofia's ninety seconds
She comes in with her phone on five percent. It goes on the desk to charge, not the bed. The heater is on in the front room with nobody in it; she switches it off. The hoodie is on the lamp; she moves it. Her sister’s straighteners are still plugged in from the morning; off at the wall.
Four things, ninety seconds, nothing happened. Nothing happening is the result you are after, and it does not happen by itself. Somebody has to walk round.
6Decide
Your phone is on three percent. Where does it charge?
Pick one to carry on.
7Find them
The hazard hunt
One room, eight things
A living room and a bedroom joined together. Tap the eight things that could start a fire. Each one you find shows what to do about it in one line.
Two of the eight are things you would never guess. One is a laptop on a duvet.
8Find them
Which of these are a fire waiting to happen?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 5.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Walk round your house and find one thing that is on and does not need to be. Switch it off at the wall. Tell a parent what it was.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
The kitchen. Chargers under pillows. Cloth near heat. Unplug what you are not using.
Next lesson: Knowing early