Food Prep Job Skills Task Cards: Knife Safety, Labels and Dish Sink, Ages 14 to 21

Kitchen jobs show up in restaurants, school cafeterias, hospitals, and catering, and the skills carry over from one to the next. This set covers the back of the kitchen: measuring, labeling and dating, the three compartment sink, closing a station, and using a knife only after training. The food safety rules are the ones a health inspector checks.

The counter and drive thru are in the Fast Food set, home dish washing and table cleaning are routines in my Task Analysis Data Sheets, and general soft skills are in my Soft Skills Scenario Cards.

• Teacher page with three support levels and a 2 week plan

• Job snapshot: jobs, a typical shift, and what supervisors look for

• 16 vocabulary cards and a vocabulary match

• Put it in order worksheets for all 5 tasks

• 8 safety rules and a 10 item safe or unsafe sort with "do this instead"

• 12 procedure cards (what is the rule here?) and a procedure planner

• On the job checklist for student and supervisor ratings, with an IEP data note

• Answer key and blank cards to write your own

I start with the job snapshot and the vocabulary cards. Then I model each task card and have students practice while a partner reads the steps. If your school has a culinary room or a cafeteria manager who will host you, the labeling and dish sink cards are easy to practice for real. The procedure cards work best a few at a time as a warm up or with role play. Before a job site visit, students set goals on the checklist, and the supervisor or job coach rates the same skills afterward.

This set is only about one workplace: its words, its tasks, and its rules. None of the scenario cards or routines are repeated here. Part of the Job Site Task Card Series: one set per workplace, all in the same layout, so you can mix sites across your caseload and students already know how the cards work when they move to a new site.

Made by Jeremy D. Gooch, special education teacher and transition coordinator. Drafting and layout had AI assistance; every page was checked by me.