Prevention Library
The Ride Safe Take Home Bicycle Rodeo Guide
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The Ride Safe Take Home Bicycle Rodeo was designed to assist you in promoting bicycle safety. A typical Bicycle rodeo tests specific riding skills on a designated course. we have taken some of the most important lessons of the Bicycle Rodeo and redesigned them so the rodeo can be conducted at home by a parent and child. We feel this approach can be effective because parents will be taking an active role in teaching their children bicycle safety and can reinforce these lessons every day.
The Rodeo Guide is divided into three parts:
Part 1 is a step by step explanation of the mechanics of conducting the take home rodeo.
Step 1: Enlist Help
The Ride Safe Take Home Bicycle Rodeo is very simple to conduct. The take home lessons are designed for you to copy directly from this guide. You may elect to solicit the help of a few people to assist you with copying and distributing these lessons.
Step 2: Define a Rodeo Schedule
You decide how and when to conduct the Take Home Rodeo. A suggested time frame from start to finish is six weeks. We have found it is most effective to send home the lessons one at a time. Participation is greater when parents are not overwhelmed with too much information at once.
Coordinate the timing of the rodeo with other bicycle safety activities you are conducting. For example, if you are conducting a poster contest, conduct the rodeo first; so the children will already have learned some valuable bicycle safety lessons.
Step 3: Send Home Parents' Letter
Send home the Parents' Letter, with the Ride Safe Bicycle Rodeo Round-Up form, to explain the purpose and mechanics of the Take Home Rodeo. A sample letter is included in the HELPFUL RESOURCES section of this guide. Be sure to include the dates of your program, due dates for the Rodeo Round-Up form and date of the Awards Ceremony.
Step 4: Send Home Rodeo Lessons
Send home the Rodeo Lessons one at a time, allowing about one week for each lesson to be completed. This allows families enough time to practice and reinforce the lessons. Parents should sign the Rodeo Round-Up form as each lesson is completed. After all five lessons are completed, the parent should return the Rodeo Round-Up form to school. All students returning a completed Rodeo Round-Up Form will receive an "Award Certificate". You may also want to send home the Parents' Tips page: Children and Traffic.
Step 5: Award Certificates
Certificates can be awarded in whatever way is most effective for you. You may simply distribute them in the classrooms or award the certificates during a school assembly. Include the names of students that have completed the rodeo in school memos or post them on the school bulletin board. You may want to expand the program to include additional prizes for the students that complete the program.
Part 2 contains the actual take home rodeo lessons.
The Take Home Rodeo Lessons are designed to be copied directly from the guide. Each lesson contains four parts:
- Parents' Instructions: Directions for completing the particular lesson.
- Lesson Background: Information/background statistics explaining why the particular lesson is important.
- Parent/Child Activity: A brief activity for parents and children to perform together that reinforces the safety lesson.
- Activity: Kindergarten - Third Grade or Fourth - Sixth Grade A short, age appropriate activity for children to perform on their own to further reinforce the lesson.
- Lesson 1: Bicycle Inspection
Parents' Instructions | Activity - Lesson 2: Bicycle Helmets
Parents' Instructions | Activity - Lesson 3: Ride Out
Parents' Instructions | Activity - Lesson 4: Intersections
Parents' Instructions | Activity - Lesson 5: Swerving
Parents' Instructions | Activity
Please note: The Ride Safe Take Home Bicycle Rodeo should not be considered a substitute for a complete traffic education curriculum. As with any subject, children learn best through age-appropriate lessons taught by instructors who understand their developmental capabilities. Children need to practice new skills and repeat and expand upon them year after year.
Reprinted with permission of Ride Safe, Inc.. © Copyright 1996, Ride Safe, Inc.