School Safety Tips for the Fall Season
You can review safety strategies with a seasonal twist and educational activities
By Andrea Ferrero
Every year, it is important to spend some time covering safety tips and strategies with your students. The fall season is a great time to review essential safety information, but there are ways to put creative spins on the topics. You could have students create monsters with safety tips on the back or have a classroom 'campfire': a perfect activity on one of those rainy and dark days in fall. This way, you can equip students with the information they need, while maintaining the fun in fall activities.
Monster Safety Tips
Students can create their own monsters using construction paper, or color and cut out templates. Each student can then attach an index card with a safety tip written or pre-printed on it. Students can share their monsters in a whole group, using slogans like the one used by Smokey the Bear - "Only you can prevent wildfires." In this case, the slogans would be something like Frankenstein says "Look both ways before crossing the street."
Campfire Classics with a Twist
You can have your students gather together for a circle story. Over the years, I have found students of all ages love a mildly scary and humorous story, especially if they get to help craft the plot. Begin the story in a low voice and have a flashlight in hand to be used as a prop. “Once upon a time in the dark woods there lived a monster. This was no ordinary monster, it was a very unfortunate creature who was always encountering the most unfortunate events. On this day he ..." Pass the flashlight, and give each student one to two minutes to add to the story. After each safety concern or unfortunate event is described, the next storyteller suggests a safe solution or method of prevention. Before beginning the story, you can brainstorm a list of safety concerns and corresponding safety tips.
Skits and Commercials
After either brainstorming a list of safety tips or providing students your own, break students into groups of three or four students. Each group will be responsible for creating a commercial advertising one of safety tips in a memorable way. I like to review the elements of persuasive writing, including methods for persuading your audience: establishing facts, having confidence, providing a relevant perspective and developing a sequence that builds and develops your argument. Giving each group the time to briefly present their skit to the class is a fun way to review each safety tip and acknowledge students. Below are some additional lesson ideas that address year round safety.
School Safety Activities:
Students create brochures focused on a safety theme (playground, fire, water. etc.). They work in teams to discuss and explore their theme then move on to crafting a rhyme and visually appealing display to represent it. The lesson includes several extension activities, songs, and technology resource links.
After a whole class discussion of citizenship, community concerns, and safety issues in the learning environment; students identify several safety issues facing their school. They work together to create a survey centered on the safety issues they identified. They then conduct and assess the school-wide survey sharing their results with school leadership.
Students develop a PowerPoint sharing fire safety tips. A detailed list of elements to include in the PowerPoint is provided along with sample subtopics and an assessment rubric.