Safe Routes Philly trains 11 Playworks Coaches

On Monday, February 21^st, Safe Routes Philly introduced our programming to eleven enthusiastic Playworks Coaches at their cheery Manayunk office. Playworks seeks to “improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.” They opened up an office serving Philadelphia schools in fall 2010. Playworks sends full time, trained “coaches” into low-income, urban schools. Their initiatives include organized play at recess, class game time, leadership development for older students, and after school tutoring and sports leagues.

The coaches received a full overview of Safe Routes Philly pedestrian and bicycle safety lessons. They will mainly utilize our Physical Education lessons, which are focused on hands-on learning for students. As a group, the coaches brainstormed how to adapt our lessons for their circumstances. Many ideas centered on including pedestrian and bicycle safety concepts into the games they currently play with the children. The majority of Playworks schools are located in Northwest and West Philadelphia, but they also serve schools in South Philadelphia, Strawberry Mansion and Center-City.

We are excited to grow our partnership with Playworks to bring more Philadelphia youth safety lessons and encourage them to use active forms of transportation like biking and walking!

Information on Playworks was paraphrased from www.playworks.org/about

Safe Routes Philly at Neighborhood Bike Works!

If you haven’t heard about the Earn-A-Bike classes by Neighborhood Bike Works, then keep reading!

The Earn-A-Bike program is the flagship program of NBW. Over the course of fourteen sessions, youth learn the basics of bike repair and maintenance, safe urban riding, and health and nutrition. Throughout the two month course, they also earn “hours,” which, by the end of the course, add up to enough to take home their very own bike! These programs are free to the participants, as all costs are covered by Neighborhood Bike Works and partner organizations.

Safe Routes Philly is often invited to bring our lesson bicycle safety to an Earn-A-Bike class. At the end of every lesson in bicycle safety, every child in our lesson in bicycle safety also gets a snazzy activity book. The activity book covers all the topics we talk about in our lesson, plus it includes a great section on the best way to lock your bike, and another section on different turning situations. A few days after a great lesson at the NBW-Haddington shop in West Philly, I stopped by. I saw the same kids I had in my lesson. They were learning how to fix flats and change tubes. When I came in, almost all of them were eager to tell me that they finished the activity book. Success! Working through our activity books after the lesson helps to solidify what they learned in class, and keep it fun. They probably didn't even realize that they were still learning!

Check out our Safe Routes Philly activity books and other lessons available. Click here.

For more information on Neighborhood Bike Works, click here.

Ride Safe,

~Cy

Would you like Safe Routes Philly at your school? Lessons are available for FREE to 5th grade classrooms in every Private, Parochial, and Charter School in Philadelphia! If you or someone you know would like us to bring our lesson, please contact Cy@bicyclecoalition.org. We are scheduling from now to the end of the school year. Act fast!

For public elementary schools, we've got a special program that will be coming to your school! Check out our website for more information.