Just before Darcie broke up from half term, she informed me that they were learning about road safety. I was so pleased to hear this as it's a life lesson that all children need to learn. We of course, have had numerous conversations about the road and the potential dangers but when I heard about the type of activities they were doing, I felt confident that my little one was on the road to becoming confident navigating the roads when out and about. In fact, I was so impressed with some of the activities, I thought I would share them with you. So how do you teach road safety to children as young as four?
Crafts
Children love to craft. A brilliant way of learning about traffic lights is through crafts. My daughter made her own set of traffic lights by selecting the correct color sequence from the coloured paper at the craft paper. Helping her to cement her understanding of the traffic lights and each of the colours meanings. Most children will understand red for stop and green for go, but do they know what a flashing green signal means? Conversations like this are great to have whilst creating your own traffic lights at home.
Role Play
Towards the end of the road safety week, the children had a role playing session. Not only did they practice safe crossing, but they adopted the roles of different occupations by being medical staff, car washers, police officers, crossing patrols and mechanics. During this role playing activity, they were encouraged to use vocabulary associated with these roles. Play is such a crucial form of learning at this age. This type of activity can be easily replicated at home.
Stories
There are some fantastic books on the market that can help aid children's understanding. At school, the teachers introduced the children to two puppet characters and then shared an important story about being safe at night . That afternoon Darcie brought us a picture home of our family all wearing fluorescent jackets. She was then when to her bike and explained to me why her bike has reflectors on them, and informing me she needs a light!! We also have books such as the Bouncing Ball, which help to educate children from as young as three the importance of road safety.Games
Games are another fun way to help children understand this important topic. Interactive quizzes such as this one, helps parent's gauge their children's understanding - whilst being fun at the same time. Games like this can be done as a whole family, with those as young as my daughter, up to high school aged children benefiting.We all know that road safety is incredibly important and I would love to hear if you have any creative ways in which you have/plan to teach your children the way of the roads.
Mummy B xoxox
*Collaborative Post