Grown-ups
Ruben Bookings
Ruben is the Waikato Regional Council’s road safety mascot who teaches children aged up to about 7 years old about road safety through fun interactive lessons and supporting resources.
Ruben the Road Safety Bear is also known as Rūpene te Pea Haumaru Huarahi. If your school or preschool, kura or Kohanga reo are in the Waikato Region and you would like Ruben | Rūpene to visit and deliver his road safety lesson in English, te reo Māori or bilingually please contact us.
Ruben will also deliver his road safety lesson at some public events if promoting the safety of children up to about 7 years old is the focus. Ring 0800 800 401 and talk to our friendly team to see if your event would be an appropriate venue for Ruben.
Resources
Ruben’s activity books, writing page, newsletters and painting pictures can all be printed, even as individual pages. Now that’s a nice easy way to remind children about Ruben’s road safety tips.
We’d appreciate receiving children’s stories and art following Ruben’s visit showing what the children learnt from Ruben and their ideas about road safety.
Cycling Video Resources
There are 3x general cycle safety videos on:
- How to fit a bike helmet
- How to do a bike check
- How to brake correctly
There are 4x bike game videos from the Bike games for schools cards that can be played on a bike track. The videos bring the game cards to life, and show teachers or instructors how to play the games.
The 4 games covered are:
- Musical bikes
- Marathon challenge
- Le Mans
- Reach the teacher
We encourage you to share these videos with your Bikes in Schools schools. Cycle skills instructors may also find them useful.
How to find and share the videos
The videos can be accessed in three ways, so you can choose what works best for you:
- They can be found on the ‘Bikes in Schools website’ here:
https://bikeon.org.nz/teaching-resources/ - They can be found on the ‘BikeReady website’ here:
https://www.bikeready.govt.nz/schools/bikes-in-schools/ and
https://www.bikeready.govt.nz/parents/teach-your-kids-to-ride-a-bike/
The videos are also in the password-protected instructor resources section of the BikeReady website, along with all the other BikeReady instructor videos. - If you want to share the YouTube links to the individual videos, they are:
How to fit a bike helmet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW3BIDY8i2s
How to do a simple bike check
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEXYCvn930U
How to brake safely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrdnGXBfbFE
Bike game – Musical bikes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-sODVZvpy4
Bike game – Le Mans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P28UxX-ni0
Bike game – Marathon Challenge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP83CDdrTng
Bike game – Reach the Teacher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysoy6pgQylQ
Buckle your child in safely
View this clip to see why it is so important to ensure children are correctly restrained when travelling in a vehicle.
This clip has been made available by Safekids New Zealand.
The following are links to websites teachers may find useful:
| Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency | Curriculum Resources NZTA/MOE |
| Te Kete Ipurangi Ministry of Education | Road Safety Competetencies and Pedagogy TKI |
The following are links to websites with more general road safety information and tips:
| Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency | New Zealand Transport Agency road user safety factsheets |
| Buying and installing child restraints | |
| Child restraints | |
| The law Requirements for using child restraints in New Zealand | |
| Biking to school safely | |
| Seven point cycle safety checks | |
| Auckland Transport | Child Safety in Cars |
| Starship | Safekids Aotearoa |
| Plunket | About car seats (child restraints) |
| Waikato Regional Road Safety Education Group | “Reduce the Risk” road safety information |
| NZ Police | Safety Tips |