It’s important to teach the under sixes not just how to cross the road, but where to cross. Our focus here is to help children recognise zebra, pelican and school crossings but also to understand how to use them. Here are the key messages to get across:
- Pedestrian crossings are the safest place to cross the road. Look out for a zebra crossing, a pelican crossing, a crossing with traffic lights or a School Crossing’s Officer with a lollipop.
- When you’re at a zebra crossing, you have to stand and wait on the pavement until all the traffic coming from the left and right has stopped. Only then is it safe to cross.
- If you’re at a pelican crossing, you’ll see a ‘little green man’ and a ‘little red man’ on the lights. When you can see the red man, you must never try to cross the road – it means you must stop. To make the lights change to the green man, you must push the button. This makes the traffic lights change to stop the traffic. Only when you can see the green man is it safe to cross. Remember to stop first and look left and right to check all the traffic has stopped.
- If there’s an island in the middle of the crossing, you can walk to it when it’s safe to cross. Then you must wait on the island until the traffic on the other side has stopped before you can finish crossing.
- Even when it’s safe to cross a road, you should always keep looking and listening in case a driver hasn’t seen you.
- Remember, it’s not just cars, lorries and buses that use the road. Keep your eyes open for cyclists and motorcyclists too, they’re harder to see because they’re smaller.
Here are a few additional activities for your child to enjoy. Simply download them then print for instant fun.
The Crossings Challenge game is a fun and interactive way to help your class get to grips with the different crossings and how each one works. Click on games and activities to play.
If you'd prefer to create your own games and activities, here are a few suggestions to start you off:
- The circle game is a really simple idea. Draw three circles and get the children to draw, copy or simply colour a 'little red man', 'little green man' and a school crossing lollipop so they know what to look for.
- Continuing with the shapes theme – there are shapes in all of the pedestrian crossings – circles, squares, rectangles. Draw shape templates and see how many the children can recognise, then turn the shapes into pedestrian crossing symbols.
