Kids' Safety Web

1. Organize students at a central place in the classroom such as the reading rug. Open a discussion about safety. What do you do to stay safe? Think of precautions you take at home, when you travel, during stormy weather, around water, and in other situations. With classmates, students make a list of safety tips with Crayola® Washable Markers. Encourage groups to categorize their ideas.
2. On poster board, students write a title for their thought diagram, such as Safety Web. Draw a circle in the middle of the sheet, and sketch a healthy, happy person in the circle.
3. Draw a web with branches from the circle that lead to more circles, which are titled with the safety categories the group identified. Draw pictures of each place in those circles.
4. In the next level of branching circles, students illustrate specific safety techniques such as car seats for transportation and smoke detectors for homes.
5. Groups present their posters to small groups of classmates.
6. As a whole class, discuss the best safety precautions students thought of.

LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

LA: Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of grade level text's complexity band independently and proficiently.

LA: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade level topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

LA: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Have students use thought diagrams to organize ideas on a different subject, such as settings in a book or the processes involved in making a painting.

Working in small groups, students investigate safety precautions required at school, on public transportation available in their community, local hospitals, shopping malls, etc. Ask students to discuss the appropriateness of these precautions. Also ask students to propose additional precautions that they believe should be put in place and be prepared to explain why these are needed.