Teaching children about Halloween Safety including tips like never trick-or-treat alone (get your free safety tip printable here) is extremely important. Children need to understand that when it is dark outside, there are additional safety hazards that present themselves.
Many people light up their Jack-O-Lanterns with real candles. This has never sat right with me! When I was a Kindergarten teacher, I came up with the idea to light up our pumpkins with a battery-powered flashlight instead of a candle. This way, you don’t have to e concerned with children (you know, the little ones who aren’t watching where they are walking OR the older ones
These are our child decorated Jack-O-Lanterns from a few years ago when my children were a bit younger. The one in the middle is made with “pumpkin light brite” pegs that I picked up when I was teaching. The kids still like to decorate their carved Jack-O-Lanterns with the pegs. They often spend hours hammering the pegs into strategic places and I love the fact that they don’t have to be supervised. This provides them with a sense of ownership over their creation.
The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs recommends keeping the following in mind with regards to Halloween Safety:
- Dangerous Décor: Jack-o-lanterns maybe a time-honored tradition, but they also represent a fire hazard. Instead of using a candle, place small flashlight or battery powered candle inside of the Jack-o-lantern. Using a long lasting battery like a Duracell Coppertop Battery will help keep them powered all night long.
- Don’t Blow It: When it comes to powering Halloween decorations, it’s easy to go overboard. But overloading extension cords and breakers is a fire hazard and will ruin the night. Be mindful of the decorations being used and when possible, opt for battery powered.
- Costume Considerations: When selecting this year’s Halloween costume, pick brightly coloured costumes that can be clearly seen by motorists. Add reflective tape to the costume to increase visibility.
- Light the way: Make sure everyone in the Halloween trick-or-treating party has a flashlight and trust that on Halloween they will have the power to light their way home with a Duracell Coppertop Battery. This will help make kids more visible to motorists and others. When is doubt, stay in well-lit areas and only visit homes with their lights turned on.
- Strength in Numbers: While always advised to have a parent present, at some point kids will want to trick-or-treat on their own. Give yourself peace of mind and make sure there is a party of at least three people.
- Know the Route: The temptation to collect as much candy as possible is understandable, but ill-advised. The safest option is to limit trick-or-treating to well-known neighbourhoods.
- Quality Control: Make sure kids resist the urge to sample the spoils of trick-or-treating until an adult has inspected the candy to see if it has been tampered with.
Prize: One lucky winner will receive a Duracell Safety Kit
approximate retail value of $70
Giveaway Ends: November 16, 2016, 11:59pm ET
Will you try using a battery powered flashlight for Halloween Safety consideration this year?
I can’t wait to see what my kids create this year!
This post has been generously sponsored by Duracell. All opinions are my own and have not been influenced in any way.
We use batteries in your home for clocks,controls,and kid toys and the latter eats the batteries the fastest.
We use batteries absolutely everywhere. In remotes, mouses, toys, etc.
We use batteries in our tv converters and dvd players. We go through batteries the fastest in our tv remotes.
We seem to use batteries in everything. Tv remotes and kids toys seem to go through batteries the fastest.
We use for remote controls for our TV and for the kids toys! The toys go through batteries the fastest!
We use batteries in our smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, remote controls, wireless mouse, clocks, and flashlights. The flashlight batteries tend to go the fastest.
We have too many things that use batteries or it least it seems that way when I have to walk through the house to change them all… the flashlights since we all use them to go to the washroom nightly, wireless mouses, toys and the main programmable thermostat are the ones I’m changing most frequently..
Our biggest item in our house that goes through the batteries has to be the xbox controllers. We had to purchase the Duracell Rechargeables.
The WII remotes use the most then flashlights
We use batteries in toys, electronic book systems, our wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, our TV remote… I think they go the fastest in our mouse.
we use the batteries most in out wireless mouse or remote controls but the mouse takes the cheese lol (used them the fastest)
Use them in my remotes , wireless mouses and fire detectors. Go threw them the most in the mouses.
Fire alarm, remotes, mouse. The remotes definitely!
We use batteries for toys, remotes, wireless mice, video game controllers and the list goes on. The video game controllers seem to go through them fastest.
We use batteries in the smoke alarms, tv remotes and a lot in the toys my granddaughter plays with!!
we use batteries in toys, and they run through batteries quick
We use batteries for all kinds of Halloween decor, including light, flameless candles…..the items that batteries get used for the most are probably my kiddos toys!
My sons toys use the most batteries.
We use batteries in our home for the remote, the clocks,fire alarms,toys and flashlights.I think the fire alarms use the most batteries because we have one in every room on every floor.
We seem to use a lot of batteries in our house. The computer mouse loves to eat through them fast!
We use batteries in the fire alarm, cordless key board, remote control, blood pressure monitor. The blood pressure monitor use the most batteries.
I have a wireless keyboard and mouse so I go through a lot of batteries.
We use batteries for our cordless mouse and remotes. I think the remotes uses up the batteries the most.
The batteries for the laptop mouse and remote control for the tv seem to always need new batteries.
My son’s Leap Pad always seems to need new batteries.
We have to change the batteries on our wireless mouse on our desktop and second would be the TV remote