Aim: To help provide your child with some basic understanding around traffic and safety.
Objectives: To learn what ‘traffic’ is, the difference between fast and slow, near and far, hard and soft, the importance of holding hands, begin developing looking and listening skills.
It is not intended you should teach everything at once, chunk it down and when coming back to the topic check on what they have learnt so far.
What is Traffic?
You: Go to this web site and sign up and download some colouring sheets of traffic such as cars, motorbikes etc.
Your Child/ren: Ask your child/ren, does s/he know what the word traffic means. Very young children won’t usually know what this word means. If they are struggling, ask what kind of things have they have seen that move on the road? If your child is still struggling, provide an example such as a car. Play a game, and think of as many different types of traffic that they can think of on the road. See if you can come up with a list of ten. Once you have done this, take some of the colouring sheets and help your child to colour them in and if they have begun to read and write, help then to write what vehicle is in each picture.
Toy Car Olympics
You: Arrange some toy cars in a line across one end of a room or perhaps a table. Make up some sheets with the words ‘fast’, ‘slow’, ‘near’ & ‘far’. Write the words so they can be coloured in.
Your child/ren: In turn, send their cars across the room or table. Which is fastest? Which goes furthest before it can stop? Which car is near? Which is far away? This is helping to helping them to understand the difference between near and far, fast and slow. Get your child to colour in the words and begin to use them as flash cards so they can eventually recognise the words and for the older ones, learn to write them. You could also place this work up on a wall in the bedroom perhaps.
Learn about Wheels
Joint activity: Make play dough wheels, (follow this link for a recipe) and roll them around. Pick up a toy car and spin its wheels. Wheels mean that traffic goes fast and can’t stop easily. It goes much faster than people who are walking. Traffic can be dangerous unless we are careful.
Let’s Look at a Car, Hard or Soft!
You may not be able to go to your car to learn this during the pandemic, so find something hard and something soft at home i.e. a piece of wood and a cushion would do.
You: Prepare some colouring sheets with the words ‘soft’ & ‘hard’ that can be coloured in. Tell the children the importance of standing well away from cars, even when they look like they aren’t moving. Take your child up to the side of the car if you can.
Your child/ren: Get them to poke the car then gently poke their tummy or the objects you have chosen. Which is soft, which is hard? Which do you think would hurt more if it hit you, something hard or something soft? Cars are hard and can hurt you if they hit you. You are soft and easily hurt. Look at a wheel. Look at how big and hard it is. It can go around very fast.
Teach them real cars and other vehicles aren’t toys. They can be dangerous if we aren’t careful. Teach them to stay away from traffic unless holding an adult’s hand. Now colour in the work sheets, use them as flash cards to help your child learn what the word looks like, if old enough, learn how to write the words. Place them up on the wall if you can as part of a road safety display.
Always Hold Hands
You: Make a large drawing of roads, paths and pavements out of coloured paper stuck together. You could include features that you have in your local area, like crossings or a park. This activity could be delivered using a tablet or computer, using basic image editing software such as Paint to create the map, and PowerPoint to add the interactivity if you have the skills.
Your child/ren: Help your children to cut out pictures of traffic (please use safety scissors), people, dogs and buggies out of old magazines or find them online and print to cut out. Stick the pictures in the right place on your road. Vehicles on the road, people on the pavement and in the park. Practise with the children key road safety words related to what’s in the picture. Ask if they can see a curb…? (They may not know this word) explain pedestrians should stand on the pavement and not the curb and stand behind the curb when waiting to cross the road. Can you see a …..? How many ……? What colour is the…..? Then stick your road on a wall, perhaps their bedroom if you can as part of their road safety display.
Looking & Listening Skills
What can you hear? What can you see? What can you sing?
You: Record some road sounds, or find them online, here is an example of a car driving away and this is an example I found with a bicycle sound effect a fire engine, motorbike, bicycle bell, a pedestrian crossing beeping. Play these to the children, and show them a set of matching pictures. Download and print some of these.
Your child/ren: Sit and guess the noises when you play them, matching them to the pictures you show, and saying what makes what noise, for example, ‘The blue car goes brum brum brum, The big red fire engine goes nee nah nee nah….’ etc and maybe turn it into a song like the wheels on the bus go …..
A Handprint Display
With some paper, get the children to trace a pencil around your hand, then get them to put their hand inside that image and draw around their hand to make a poster, colour it in together and write ‘We hold hands’ at the top, and display it where they can see it. Use it to help explain it is really important to hold hands whenever they are near traffic.
Draw or Make a Road Safety Car
Use a small box and cut out circles for children to stick to the side for wheels, or just draw a car on a piece of paper and let children colour it in. Write ‘slow down’ or ‘belt up’ on the side of the cars, or draw a 20mph road sign, and give them to the children to take home.