Lesson Plan:  Knife Safety

National Family & Consumer Sciences Standards:

9.0:   Food Science, Nutrition & Dietetics

9.2.5:  Demonstrate practices and procedures that assure personal and workplace health and hygiene.

Common Core State Standards:

RST.9-10.3:  Follow precisely a multi-step procedure when carrying out experiments, taking measurements, or performing technical tasks, attending to special cases or exceptions defined in the text

Purpose:  

Knives can be the most dangerous tool in the kitchen, yet they are essential for food preparation. Students will learn about and use a variety of knives for different purposes in the foods lab.

Behavioral Objective:

The student will understand and demonstrate proper knife usage.

Time:   1 – 50 minute class period

Materials Needed:

• Knife Safety PowerPoint

• YouTube videos

  • How to Hold a Knife

  • Using “The Claw”

  • How to Sharpen a Knife

  • How to Clean a Knife

• Knife Safety Quiz or Knife Safety Online Quiz

• Knife Safety Quiz Key

• Knife Safety pdf. – for absent students

• Knives and carrots to cut up

Anticipatory Set:

• Using a chef’s knife, demonstrate how to cut up a carrot into even slices.

Instructional Content:

1. Watch and take notes on the Knife Safety PowerPoint. There are video links to YouTube within the PowerPoint.  

2. Have students use their chef’s knives to practice chopping carrots using “the claw”.

3. Students take the written quiz:  Knife Safety Quiz.  The quiz is also available to take online at  Knife Safety Online Quiz. Teachers may access the quiz and student answers here.

4. Students who were absent can access the YouTube video, Powerpoints and online quiz. Teachers may also choose to give students the Knife Safety pdf, which contains all of the information from the PowerPoint.

Flipped Instruction/Independent Study Option:

Students may learn all of the lesson content online at KPCompass.com. The teacher may give the student the course code: VXMQNH9P  to enter they have logged onto the site. Then under “Washington State Safety Project” they can click on “Kitchen Safety Tips”, then “Knife Safety” to learn the information and to take the associated quiz.

Teachers wishing to have their own class site on KPCompass.com will have instant access to all of their student progress.  For a free class site, please contact the webmaster at: Dawn_Boyden@lkstevens.wednet.edu.

Assessment:

• Observe students using knives.

• Knife Safety Quiz or Knife Safety Online Quiz