Road Safety: Traffic Signs and Their Meanings

Six US road signs run down the left side of this 1st grade page, each in its own box with a dot beside it, and six short meanings run down the right. The child draws a line from each sign to what it means. The sheet shown matches a yellow five-sided school sign with two children on it, a yellow diamond with a walking person, a red octagon reading STOP, a yellow diamond with a traffic signal, a red and white triangle reading YIELD, and a round red DO NOT ENTER sign. The meanings are written in a child's words, such as A school is near, so look out for children and Every car must halt here, then look.

Signs are how the road talks to people, and a first grader can learn to read them by shape and color before reading every word on them. This page teaches the signs a child meets on the way to school, all drawn to the United States sign standards, so the octagon, the diamond and the five-sided school sign look as they do on American streets. Each meaning fits only one sign: the school sign warns that a school is near, while the walking diamond marks a place where people cross the road, so point out the schoolhouse outline before matching.

One sheet, six signs, six lines. Take the page on a walk around the school block and tick off any sign you see; most neighborhoods have at least three of these six. The sorting face asks which signs give a rule and which give a warning, and the quiz face turns the meanings into sentences with three signs to choose from, so this page is the one to start with.