And I'm also just thinking about coding, too, and if we delve a little deeper into that, how can simple coding with digital tech connect to early literacy and numeracy and road safety?

Coding with floor robots like Bee-Bots or printable coding grid mats is early numeracy and literacy in action.

So children can create sequence codes using directional arrows, forward, turn left, turn right, a great way to navigate a simple map.

They learn positional language, that spatial awareness, counting the grid squares, and cause and effect.

And we've seen services attach photos of children holding hands with a grown-up to the front of the Bee-bots.

Oh, wow.

Just, and like we say, those digital devices also make it easier to get our families involved in translations, being able to easily share written, spoken messages in their home language.

Translations and audio recordings can be used along with drawings and photos by educators and children in the creation of those service-specific road safety posters, e-books, and any type of documentation to share with families.

But how can educators intentionally use these different elements of music to scaffold children's understandings of road safety?

So I'm thinking one of our regularly used pedestrian safety songs.

So Here We Go Walking Holding Hands, and it's to the tune of Here We Go Around The Mulberry Bush.

This allows for lots of creative- creativity when we're exploring the elements of music.

We might explore the beat and the tempo when we're asking children to hold hands and walk at a normal speed.

Then we might say to them, "How about we walk a bit slower? And then maybe even faster." All the while we're s- changing that beat by creating it with maybe an instrument like a tambourine or even tapping sticks like I've got here and, you know, creating that beat.

[taps sticks] Or we could get them to s- explore maybe rhythm through using body percussion or other percussion instruments when they're just playing the syllables of those words that are in the song.

When you're walking on the path, hold a grown-up's hand.

A great, uh, concept for educators to keep in mind 'cause it's such an important skill for children to be able to recognize those patterns, uh, before they're going to big school.

Another experience might be, um, through sorting, uh, like a sorting experience, where we might have, um, you know, we use mini motors, little vehicles where there's cars and buses and trucks.

And children might be able to sort by some of the attributes of those vehicles.

So it might be the color or the type of vehicle, or even do we wear a seatbelt on that type of transport or don't, are there no, um, seatbelts on that transport? And we've even used it with children before where they've actually had to create another subcategory where it's sometimes you wear seatbelts-

And I was just thinking as well for educators who might be taking children on excursions or families when they're out and about with their children, how could they also promote those mathematical thinking skills when they're in the real road traffic environment?

Well, I think it's about, um, when we're out walking, of course, we're holding hands with the children, but thinking about all those, um, what we're surrounded by, all those opportunities for discussion and building understandings.

We need to look at that environment around us, that environmental print that is everywhere, the numbers that we can see on houses and businesses, and looking at that order that they follow.

Maybe numbers on buses or other public transport that children see or are traveling on.

Is that what they would draw and write about and ask you as an educator to describe their stories of how they've been travelling safely?

And I think it's even for children to reflect upon potential journeys they've had on holidays.

If they are children from cities that have gone to the country, they're going to pick up the train lines that they might have seen or the cows.

Or some of them will be like, oh, that's a hill.

I had to navigate that.

Or same as the opposite, when you've got the... rural children coming to the city and they suddenly see a tram.

So it's a really lovely way across all of New South Wales for children to be able to look at the different road signs.

And it doesn't matter the length of the journey or whether they're awake or asleep, they always need to be buckled up safely.

Is that the gist?

Yes, precisely.

We really want to embed that road safety education into those daily teaching routines, transitions, looking at the children's interests, and our interactions with them.

It really helps for children to develop their understandings of how to keep safe in a way that feels relevant and meaningful to them.

We'll need to make sure we always keep that golden rule in mind.

We need to engage our young children in learning about ways to keep safe when out and about, without making them responsible for their own safety.

That is why involving families is so crucial.

In the two to three-year-old room, uh, the children used small world play, using small people to show how they hold hands with their grown-ups.