Pizza Party for Safety

One of the most important lessons a student can learn is how to stay safe.  It's a skill he or she will use throughout life.  For special-needs students, it's particularly empowering because it helps them maintain personal control in their lives.

Teachers of one special-needs class addressed safety with their students through academics, individual goals, and collective celebration.  They worked with each student to set individual goals and identify behaviors that would meet those goals.  Students communicated their ideas verbally and through pictures. 

As a group, the students role-played how to reach these goals through appropriate behavior in situations outside and inside the classroom.  Through the work, they prepared not only for safety in their daily classes and regular field trips, but also in future workplaces.  The students worked cooperatively to remind each other of what they were learning, and the teachers helped them understand their individual challenges by teaching, as appropriate to each student's learning ability, the science behind their disabilities.

The teachers gave each youth a pizza slice-shaped piece of paper and a sticker representing pepperoni for each day he or she successfully met goals.  When each student had 10 stickers, the slices formed a whole pizza.  Regularly reviewing this equation, the students tracked their progress through math.

The proof of success was definitely in the pizza.  As the special-needs students enjoyed a rare treat of pizza for lunch, they celebrated the good work they'd accomplished learning about safety while honing academic skills.

Adapted from "Route to Reform: K-8 service-learning Curriculum Ideas," © 1994-95 National Youth Leadership Council.