Child Safety
(For 4th and 5th grades)

General Guidelines: 1) Don't tell horror stories of accidents that can provoke terror. If students can react to dangerous situations both seriously and calmly, they're more likely to make the right decision than if they're terrified. 2) For younger children, don't do a game that results in ultimate winners and losers. Losers tend to get upset. Instead, complement each student who tries to answer,  then compliment all at the end for their attention. In this way, all come out feeling like winners. 

Materials Needed: 1) Bring one die and a small object to move around on the game board. (For example, plastic army man, person skiing, quarter, etc.) 2) Prepare the board for the game on a poster board. 3) Prepare (or just copy from below and cut out) five "Prevention" cards and stack of "Accident" cards.

Introduction

Today we want to talk about safety. If everyone is willing to get involved, I think it will be a lot more fun. 

Discussion: 1. I'll start by telling you about a couple of accidents I've had in my life. Can you give me suggestions as to how these accidents could have been avoided? 2. Could you tell me about some accidents that you or your friends and family have had, so that we can discuss what we can learn from them? 

Transition: Accidents aren't fun. Sometimes they're just embarrassing. Sometimes they hurt. Let's learn a little more about the best ways to prevent accidents and to help when they happen. We'll make it more fun by playing a game called...

Slopes and Lifts

Object: How many of you have ever gone snow skiing? How many of the rest of you have seen it on TV or in a movie? What is a ski lift? What is the slope? The object of snow skiing is to have fun while going down the slopes, hopefully without falling! The object of this game is to make it all the way to the bottom of the slope, before the time limit is up (15 minutes? 20 minutes?). 

How the Game is Played:  Have you ever played the board game "Chutes and Ladders"? "Slopes and Lifts" is similar, but opposite. Instead of going up the board, you're going down. You roll dice (let each student get a chance to roll) and go the number of spaces on the dice. Your class will play as a team, competing against the clock. 

(If the below sounds too complicated, just roll the dice and do what each space says!)

If you land on the top of a "slope" you get to go down a portion of the hill. If you land at the bottom of a "lift," you've got to go back up. If you land on an "accident" space, you pick up a card and decide, as a class, both how to react to the accident and how to prevent it from happening again. If you get the answer right, you proceed to the next "healthy" space. If you get it wrong, you stay where you are and roll again.  

If you land on a "Prevention" space, you get a "prevention card" and automatically get out of your next "accident." (Still read the "accident card" and let the students answer. But they get to move to the next "healthy" space whether they got it right or not. After all, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!" 

Preparing the Game Board:  I'd put the below on a large poster board, so that all students can see it. You could actually draw the grid as large as you can with a marker, then copy off the below and cut and paste each instruction into each box. You'll need to add gently curving lines from the top of each slope to the bottom of each slope. Also draw a ski lift from each lift bottom to lift top (or search "Google,"  click on "Images," type "ski lift" in the search box, click on "Advanced Image Search" and choose "GIF Files" under "File Types."

Slopes and Lifts

Game Hints: 

1 - If students move through it too quickly, tell them to start over and go for a world's record. 
2 - If they keep hitting lifts and getting discouraged, say, "Let's just forget the lifts!" so that they don't get discouraged. You want them to feel like winners at the end!
3 - If they go through all the "accident cards" and start hearing the same ones again, that's okay! They can see if they remember the right response. It's a great review.

Accident Cards (Copy and Cut Out)

Prevention Cards

How One Teacher Adapted This Lesson

I adapted your idea and it worked well. It was easy to download clip art to incorporate into the game board plus I used a couple of large snowboarding pictures to capture kids' attention. I put the game board on the overhead projector and used paper clips on a tiny bit of colored laminating film for snow board game pieces.  I didn't have any big dice so I numbered the sections (1-6) on a small beach ball. The class wanted to have 2 teams so we did and they were engaged but noncompetitive.  I added more accident cards to address points I wanted to make. (Betsy Hehn, School Counselor, Hanahan Elementary School)