Safety City Field Trip
Last Friday the boys and I headed to Safety City, along with 40-50 other homeschoolers between the ages of 4 and 7. Safety City is a place for kids to learn about pedestrian and road safety. The boys were quite excited as we arrived, as while we do tons of outings, we don’t often meet up with other homeschoolers for “organized field trips”:
We met up with the large group at the picnic tables, and then were made to divide into two equal groups and line up neatly. It was an interesting introduction to school life for the boys and no doubt others. Homeschooled kids don’t get much practice in lining up neatly outside to march single file into the classroom! 
The kids settled onto foam mats on the classroom floor.
The instructor gave a short presentation about safety, including showing various street signs (Stop, Playground Zone, etc.) and traffic signals / lights. There were a few funny moments, like when she asked the class about safe and unsafe places to play. “Parks, playgrounds and backyards” were the predictable answers to the former, but she was clearly taken aback when one child yelled out “Jungles!” for unsafe places (amid roads, railway tracks and the like).
She then taught the kids a variation of the “pause, point, proceed” method of crossing the street, emphasizing that by pointing their hand they made themselves bigger and more visible to drivers. Here’s Gareth demonstrating:
Then came the part the vast majority of the kids were waiting for, and why they were wearing their helmets: to the trikes! Half the kids pretended to be cars and practiced road safety (drive on right, stop for pedestrians and a stop signs, etc.) while the other half practiced crossing safely, then they switched. This was BY FAR my boys’ favourite part of the afternoon:
It was then back to the classroom to watch a short video about crossing the street safely, featuring Jiminy Cricket (who Gareth LOVES) and Pinocchio.
The boys said they enjoyed the Safety City Field trip, and would like to do more outings with homeschoolers. Okey, dokey!
April 28th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Looks like the boys had a great time practising being cars and pedestrians. Very nice photo montage of their afternoon. Thanks for sharing. (Always nice when Dad is kept in the loop.)
April 28th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
You forgot to mention how resourceful Daegan was by figuring out the answers to the instructor’s road sign questions by referring to a poster that was beside him. I was impressed. And thanks for making us famous! Great pics.