Product Review: TOS WannaBe Series Firefighters

I was given a copy of the Firefighters E-book from the TOS WannaBe series to use with the boys and review.  We had a fun week studying about firefighters and fire safety.

There was lots of hands-on and physical activity with this unit, which of course appealed to my boys.  Here we practiced “stop, drop and roll.”

We also held a family fire drill and set up and practiced a firefighter training course that included ladder climbing, hose hauling and completely soaking the tree house.  :)

We took a walk in the neighborhood in search of fire hydrants.

And ds3 made these nifty firemen out of Legos.  Love the pirate face.  (Btw, the Lego website has a great section with games and other info about firemen.)

The information for the unit comes in the form of a delightfully written narrative beginning with the history of firefighting through a “day in the life” story from a real fireman.  I broke it down into five days worth of topics that the boys enjoyed listening to.  After my narration we would do some of the included copy work, vocabulary and math exercises and read one of the books we found at the library.  The only section we did not do was the robot study…to me it just didn’t fit in with firefighting and would be better as a study on it's own.

This unit was well researched and included a good mix of “desk” work and hands on fun that I felt good about presenting to my boys.  The age range is stated as 4-10, although the “desk” work is more at the upper age level.  The information presented and the hands-on activities were great for my 5yo but he didn’t have anything else to do while my 9yo completed his worksheets.

The E-book is a good value at $8.95 and I will certainly use it again when ds4 is older.  There are other books in the series, including artist, police man, missionary, chef and pilot.  They make a nice introduction to the various positions people hold in the community as well as a way to further your child’s interest in any one of them.