Pedestrian Review for Older Children

Help kids and parents review safe pedestrian behavior. 

By 3rd grade most kids know what a pedestrian is. 

Go over these terms in class, make sure all children know to look left, look right, then left again before crossing the street.

Then challenge them to find the words on the left in the grid of letters.

The rest of the sheet is self explanatory.

All of these exercises build awareness for bicyclists as well as pedestrians.  

Save this image and print it from Windows Photo Viewer or visit Safekids.org and print it directly from their website:  http://www.safekids.org/assets/docs/for-educators/activity-pedestrian-activity-sheets.pdf

Bike Helmet, Skateboard Helmet or ?? Help Kids Tell the Difference

Parents and kids need to understand the difference between and among helmets so they pick the right one for the specific activity.  Let kids match the right helmet to the right sport, then take this home to show their parents.   For use in your class you can "save image as" and print from Windows Photo Viewer or you can visit Safekids.org and print it directly from there:  http://www.safekids.org/assets/docs/for-educators/activity-helmet-activity-sheet.pdf.

Helmet Exercise for K thru 3rd Grade

To print this for use in your class simply save this image and print it from Windows Photo Viewer.  Alternatively, you can visit http://www.helmetsrus.net/maze.pdf and print the pdf directly from there.

In a bike club with mixed ages older kids can help the younger kids complete this maze as time allows.

From www.HelmetRUs.net

Rainy Day Bike Education Activities for Middle School Students

What to do on a rainy day when you've got a classroom full of rowdy 7th and 8th graders who should be out on their bikes!?

1)  Rules of the Road:
Show this YouTube video of a bike/ped crash in NYC:  http://platinumbikeplan.blogspot.com/2010/11/bicycle-safety-new-york-style-how-wrong.html 
Then talk about why we have rules.

2)  Another good video, although longer, is the 1963 film "One Got Fat."  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQgAMkMmsfg

It is 15 minutes long but pretty entertaining.

3) Of course - if you have enough tires and can either demonstrate or use a YouTube video you can show how to change a tube or patch a tire.

Try to let students who have done this before lead and demonstrate.  Get them to talk about each step they go through.

There are lots of YouTube videos on this.
Here's one on changing a road bike tire:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5K-DXt9djA&feature=related

Here's another on a hybrid bike:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oFXewhx3BE

CSU Can Avoid Being a Chaos Box for Cyclists

 by Rick Price

First published in the Fort Collins Coloadoan, Sept. 5, 2011

One of the bicycle handling and safety drills that we do with elementary kids is called the “chaos box.” It teaches younger children, especially, why we have rules of the road.

A chaos box involves the creation of a thirty to forty foot square or circle on the playground or in the school parking lot. Participants are encouraged to ride anywhere inside the box without putting a foot down or losing their balance. The more kids in the box the more chaotic it becomes, sometimes to the point of gridlock which, of course, is the whole point.

The chaos box works best with younger kids since they don’t know the rules of the road. Older children or adults know, for example, to keep to the right while younger kids haven’t yet figured that out. The result with older children and adults is that soon everyone is flowing in a counterclockwise direction around the box because they know to keep to the right.

With the younger kids a teaching moment occurs when you stop everyone and suggest they try keeping right. Immediately they find that they can continue pedaling without running into one another.

I am reminded of the chaos box when I pedal across the CSU campus this time of year. The entire campus is a gigantic chaos box where the rules of the road are unclear to many. What a teaching and learning opportunity! How can we make the most of this?

With elementary kids we let chaos reign for a few minutes in the box and then we stop everyone and talk about rules of the road including keeping right, signaling, not tailgating and so on. A chaos box needs a coach or referee, in short.

Getting scofflaw cyclists to stop to hear about rules of the road doesn’t work well as they’re gone before you can say “excuse me.” So we need a plan B to stop cyclists in the CSU chaos box so we can talk to them about rules of the road.

So here’s a thought. Just two weeks ago Trevor Hughes reported in this newspaper that Molly North, Assistant Bike Coordinator for the City of Fort Collins, took up a position at West Plum and Shields Street to coach campus-bound cyclists on how to use the newly installed “bicycle box”. Mr. Hughes produced a video that may be the perfect example of how we could deploy “bicycle ambassadors” to educate novice bicyclists on how to ride before they become scofflaws.

Bicycle ambassadors teach bike safety and provide information on rules of the road, best practices, and smart cycling procedures. Imagine a cadre of 30 bicycle ambassadors deployed at most of the thirty-nine streets leading onto the CSU campus to share the smart cycling story with new students during the first two weeks of CSU classes.

This is the type of outreach that a “bicycle friendly” university should be undertaking. When can we start?

Bicycle Ambassadors May Hold the Key to Educating CSU Students

In a copyrighted story in the Fort Collins Coloradoan on August 24th, staff writer Trevor Hughes reports on the initiative of the City's assistant bike coordinator, Molly North, to educate bicyclists on the use of bike boxes at the corner of East Plum and Shields Street.

The video tells the story.  

Teaching Young Children How to Ride a Bicycle

After publishing the following Smart Cycling column in the Fort Collins Coloradoan in July I recieved the following testimonial from the mother of a six year old in Fort Collins:

"I just wanted to thank you for your very informative column in the Coloradoan this summer about how to teach your child to ride a bike!

My daughter received her first bike at age 3 from Santa and the first time she fell off, she refused to get back on for 3 years....Last year she started to ride it again to school with her training wheels on and was laughed at by some of her school mates. I could see how this made her feel sad(she cried) and she was determined to try and ride without her training wheels. This was her goal for the summer but once again, she was scared to try. Last week, we took her pedals off and lowered her seat and she learned to get her balance gliding around our cul de sac for 2 days and then she asked her dad to put the pedals back on and she zoomed off like a pro! You should have seen the look of pride on her face for having accomplished this! She's eager to ride her bike every day now! Thank you so much!"

An Italian child learns to ride among the pigeons in old town Bergamo (Bergamo Alta).

 
The original column is here:
 
Parents teach their kids to balance and ride a bike but they often forget to teach them how to stop. As you might imagine, that can be a problem. Rules of the road are another important element that kids need to learn and one that parents don’t always teach.


Two weeks ago I wrote about teaching small children to ride by taking the pedals off their bike. Then I went camping in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains where we had a bungalow near the playground. I watched with amazement as a tiny German girl zipped around the playground on her perfectly fitted mountain bike. She had perfect technique, knew when to stand on the pedals to go up an incline, and hesitated only briefly when her father suggested she take the plunge down a steep incline.

When I spoke to her father about her skills I learned that she was four years old and has three years experience on bikes. Just the day before she had completed a forty-mile ride around the Sella Mountain Massif on her tag-along behind her father. That ride included four mountain passes and about six thousand feet of vertical climbing. Dad was exhausted but daughter was the most active kid on the playground.

So I asked how she developed her skills. He explained that when she was 18 months old she learned to balance on a “balance bike.” The name in German is “laufrad,” literally a “walk-bike.” Then at two and a half she switched to a bike with pedals and there was no holding her back. (Father was also proud to say that she had skied sixty-five days last winter!)

Balance bikes are a great alternative to removing the pedals from a small bike to teach kids how to balance. If you buy a balance bike, though, try and find one with a hand brake that works. If kids learn to use that before moving on to a bike with pedals, they will be that much farther along in learning how to stop. Alternatively, they will use their feet to stop which is ok, but not the best solution.

Once you do move your child to a real bicycle with pedals, teach them how to get on safely and to begin pedaling with their right foot in a power position. This is essential as you don’t want them to think that they always need to be able to touch the ground with two feet.

Kids who learn to ride at an early age will discover a freedom and independence that may drive mother crazy. So it is important that along with handling skills, they learn basic rules of the road, including, keeping to the right on the sidewalk, stopping at the edge of the road and at driveways, and stopping as well as “going.” Take them often to the park, including parks with BMX dirt tracks and lots of multi-use trails as in Spring Creek Community Park.