Creating Awareness Among Children About Police Station And Railway Station

Mrs.Poonam Sethi, creates awareness about Police Station and Railway Station in her kindergarten class, by combining discussions, poems and activities to reinforce lessons learnt. She is a kindergarten teacher with several years of experience and when the subject demands, she even writes her own poetry to make learning anything fun and easy.

Police Station

Discussion

• Talk to the children about safety tips. Ask them to memorise the phone numbers of parents and any other important family member as well as home address.
• Explain to them why they must never share details such as phone numbers and address with strangers.
• Tell them that the role of a police officer is that of a community helper. Help from a police officer can be sought only in times of extreme emergency when parents are not around. This can be done by placing a call to the police station.
• Talk about how police officers play an extremely important role in keeping children, their families and neighbours safe.
• Connect rules followed in the school with the concept of law. Explain that laws are rules that everyone follows to be safe.
• Explain that police help to keep peace, enforce law and protect people and property. They also solve crimes. Traffic police ensures that people follow rules and accidents on the road are minimised.

Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash

POLICE STATION

Our teacher took us for a visit to the police station,

To show us how the police helps our nation.

The officer said: “We all work in unity,

We are here to help the community”.

I saw some people standing in a line,

The police put them in prison for crime.

The officer said, “Don’t fear the police if you have done no wrong

We are there to look after you and we are strong”.

In the middle of the street he also stands,

At cars and buses, waving his hands

To help little children safely cross the road

He always smiles and never looks bored.

In case of trouble, remember my dear,

Complain at the police station without fear.

Activities

• Contact the local police station and arrange an interactive session between the children and the police officer. Ask the children to keep their questions ready.
• Arrange a visit to the police station and get the police officer to take them around and get the feel of the police station.
• Arrange a craft class and help the children to make police caps.
• Get the children to speak about, when they grow up how they would be able to help the police to maintain law and order in the city.
• Have a special prayer service in school and get the children to say special prayer for the police officers as they put their life at risk to protect us.
• Vocabulary that can be introduced – safety, strangers, law, emergency, community.

Railway Station

Discussion

• Talk to the children about the ways of travel eg: air,rail road sea.
• Ask the children if they have been to the railway station. Find out the purpose of their visit, was it to see someone off receive someone or when they went out of station themselves.
• Talk to them about the scene at the railway station, the sound of the train coming in.
• Discuss about the ticket counter and how important it is to have a ticket to travel.
• Talk to them about the different ways of booking the tickets eg: booking counter, travel agent and online booking.
• Tell them that the tickets have to be booked much in advance as there are so many people who travel every day.
• Explain to them about the enquiry counter and platform tickets.
• Talk to them about the arrival and departure of the trains from different platform and the announcements of arrival and departure of the trains.
• Explain the work of porters and hawkers and the importance of their presence on the platform.
• Talk about the guard, signal, ticket checker, the ticket collector at the gate and the importance of their work.

Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash

Chook Chook Train

Chook,chook train is leaving the station,

Another train is reaching the destination.

Some are coming and some are going,

Platform has people who are traveling.

They all carry lots of baggage,

They hire a porter to carry heavy luggage.

The announcements at the station are very loud,

Window for tickets has a big crowd.

Hawkers shout to sell food and tea,

The train at the platform will leave in no time you see.

The guard blows the whistle and the train leaves,

Within a minute, it picks up speed.

All wave to say good-bye,

Parting from dear ones makes them cry.

Activities

• With cardboard, make some tickets and money. On two cards, write Tickets and Enquiry. Place two tables in the classroom use one as ticket counter and the other one as enquiry counter. The children can stand in a line to buy tickets and some can stand in a line to find out about the arrival and departure of the trains.
• Make two trains with children holding each other at the waist. One train can come from outside the classroom and arrive at the platform, which is in the class. The other train can depart from the class go round the class and exit. For the departing train let one child act as the guard and show the green flag.
• Some children can act as porters and carry luggage while some can be hawkers and sell food as the train arrives at the platform. This will be a fun activity and help children learn how things work at the platform.
• New Vocabulary that can be introduced: Platform, ticket counter, enquiry counter, platform tickets, announcements, arrival, departure, porters, hawkers, passengers.

Mrs. Poonam Sethi has graciously agreed to share her poems and the corresponding set of activities every week. These are being published every Thursday. Previous article in this series is A Kindergarten Teacher Turns Into A Poet – II. She tells us more about the role of poetry and stories in the classroom in her articles- Role of Poetry In Enabling Children To Read For Pleasure and In Conversation with Mrs.Poonam Sethi.

If you are a teacher or a parent who uses poetry often to teach, Reading Journey by MerryGoBooks, would love to hear from you. Please write to lakshmi.mitter@yahoo.com.