Teaching safety skills

The best, most effective way of teaching safety skills is practice with lots and lots of praise. It may seem silly, but it is a reliable technique. Overdo the praise.


"Good job staying on the sidewalk with me, thank you for holding my hand. When we cross a street, we stop and ________ _________ ________. Good job! That is right, we look both ways. Hey, you are holding my hand again crossing the street, thank you so much. I love it when you stay on the sidewalk. I feel so much safer that way."

If your child has developmental delays, it may be important to also teach and remind the child what the actual words mean.

What is the sidewalk? Make a song, draw it on pictures, highlight it with chalk. This pays off later, when you and the child are both very clear on the expectations. It also gives you a chance to work on vocabulary building and generalization while making you aware of which part your child might be getting tripped up on.

Another bonus, the child has many successful experiences while you build up his/her prerequiste skills. For instance, a child who is misunderstanding a key word (ex: sidewalk) will be not fulling responding successfully to your expectations. If you dont break the skills down, neither one of you may figure out why the task is so frustrating.


Activities to practice at home, at school or in the community:

http://http//lessonplancentral.com/lessons/Health/Safety/index.htm

http://http//www.teachervision.fen.com/school-safety-month/teacher-resources/6661.html

http://http//www.fema.gov/kids/teacher.htm



Safety helmet information can be printed in Spanish and French:

http://http//www.bhsi.org/spanish.htm

To see local events, check out my Examiner.com site!

http://www.examiner.com/x-34685-Fort-Collins-Special-Education-Examiner