Traffic education curriculum - Kindergarten No 5 in Glogow/Poland

The objective of a teacher is to provide children with the necessary knowledge and get them into the habit of behaving properly on the roads as a passer-by and a passenger.
Traffic education, is one of nursery education areas.
Playing in the kindergarten, playground, or while walking, a child unwittingly becomes a participant of the road traffic. Knowing traffic rules, a child is able to behave safely. Teachers, parents and police are partners in doing the task. The structure of the nursery school curriculum enables to carry out the content of the traffic education on the basis of grading difficulties adapted to the development potential of children and children's age always through the action of surrounding reality.
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The selection of topics depends on the conditions of a particular kindergarten, specificity of a town, the landform features of the vicinity (child’s movement in the nearby area ). Only then do we continue with more general issues related to road safety.

Our nursery school has drawn up its own original curriculum entitled
“A safe nursery school pupil on the road”, which main objectives are:
- teaching basic traffic rules,
- teaching rules of conduct conditioning child’s security,
- drawing up and carrying out various tasks, solving problems

The objectives of the traffic education are carried out through walks to junctions and observing traffic and traffic lights, excursions to the police headquarters and watching police officers’ work and also by means of reading books, watching educational films, meeting a policeman, taking part in competitions or educational traffic games and plays.

Methods used in traffic education:
- observation and demonstration,
- verbal presentation,
- personal example,
- unassisted child’s experience,
- unassisted child’s activity.

Stimulating methods in traffic education:
- field games and plays including exercises essential to participate in the road traffic in a proper way
- teaching is enriched with rebuses, games, jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, guessing games, games involving physical movement accompanied by music,
- organizing road safety team competitions,
- getting to know the roads and zebra crossings in our housing estate,
- including road traffic issues in art and design technology classes- making scale models of roads, vehicles, designing board games including road signs,
- inviting police to various meetings, competitions, talks and presentations.

Final results in the area of children’s knowledge, skills and conduct have been subject to assessment.

Tools used:
- parents’ opinion survey,
- “Safety on the roads” contest results ( the contest was held in groups with the participation of a police officer),
- children’s craftwork.

Work result:
- the results of the survey show that both parents and children have a great awareness of the importance of traffic education ,
- skills and knowledge gained enable the children to achieve better and better results in the guessing games and craftwork competitions held in the kindergarten,
- the children, behaving irreproachably on the roads, during walks and excursions, in relation to other people and animals, show that they understand the notion of a safe kindergarten pupil.

The results of the evaluation depicts pupils’ good knowledge and a large number of skills gained, which ought to be continuously developed and improved in the future..

Author: Dorota Kaczmarek
Translator: Andrzej Wysocki