Poison Prevention Preschool Lesson Plan Activities
What Can We Eat (WAECE)

Themes

Instructions and Suggestions

Materials

Activity #1  from WAECE:  The Children's Club
Our Care - Topic:  What Can We Eat
We work on:  

• Control of risk
• Responsibility

The teacher talks to the children:

Sometimes at home, and also in the school you will see some things very tempting because they look like tidbits; but they really are medicines or cleaning products.

When you don't know if you can eat something, although it is very desirable, because it smells very well or because it is very colorful and beautiful, don't eat it without asking an adult about it, because perhaps you are in danger and you can get ill.

Print supplementary material (click to open in a new window).

Each child has to color and circle the things that are eatable and he/she has to cross out with a red pencil the ones that are poisoned or dangerous.
Reprinted with permission - World Association of Early Childhood Educators.

The activity above addresses an important issue of safety:  Poison Safety. 

About every 30 seconds a child under the age of five will be poisoned accidentally in the U.S.A. alone, with common household items or medicines.

Obviously the safest thing to do is to keep all harmful items away from children.  

By age three and older, rather than just  hide or keep under lock and key every item in our home that is unsafe, the activity suggests another step in Poison Safety:
1.  Recognize Unsafe Items:  Children can learn to recognize items by sight that are not edible and dangerous this way we can prevent an accidental poisoning
 2.  Ask an Adult First:  Teach the children to ask an adult first before consuming an item -  both of these points address assessing risk and learning responsibility.  

Activity >  Poison Prevention Coloring Book courtesy of UB School of Pharmacy
This coloring book can also be a great resource to present this topic.  Carefully select the pages that are appropriate for the children's age group.    This book can be a separate activity to assemble and make a special book for home, preschool or child care use.  

Activity >  Learning Letter X for Poison Safety with  Alphabet Buddy Xavier the Pirate.

A fun way to learn letter X is to use it as a signal to children that any product identified with the letter X is not safe to consume.  

Idea for the use of the activity sheet:  What Can We Eat:  Rather than to indicate to cross out the unsafe items, present the letter X, demonstrate how it is written and tell the children to use Letter X to indicate the unsafe items.

1.  Label with X at Home:  With a permanent marker or bright colored masking tape we can label products at home that are unsafe and our children can help us do that.  This way they will get acquainted with these products and also to learn and recognize the letter X.

2.  Xavier the Pirate Alphabet Buddy >  Xavier is going to remind the children about safety around certain items that they must not consume or handle.  Print the template in color or black and white.  Cut the pieces ahead of time or older children can practice scissor cutting.    

External Resource for Poison prevention awareness program:
*  Quills Up – Stay Away! A Poison Awareness Program featuring Spike, the porcupine puppet. The program, designed for preschool children, makes it easy and fun to teach this important topic. This is an excellent resource that includes a teachers guide and many printable materials for children and parents.

Make sure to present information about the porcupine and introduce letter P.  A porcupine is a rodent and lives in forests, deserts and grasslands.

What Can We Eat Activity Sheet  

External links:
dltk-teach.com
Xavier the Pirate

Poison Prevention Coloring Book
UB School of Pharmacy


aapcc.org
Quills Up – Stay Away! A Poison Awareness Program 
Spike, The Porcupine puppet
.

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