Kindergartners receive drivers’ licenses after passing course

Kindergarten students at Martin Walker Elementary School are being licensed to drive--drive down their hallway, that is. With lessons involving cookies and cardboard cars, the five and six year olds were able to earn their own drivers’ licenses.

After a week of intense traffic safety lessons, students are given the opportunity to take part in an experience most won’t get again until drivers’ education. Students spent a week studying the meaning of colors and what they mean when it comes to traffic safety. They also learned the meaning of signs that they frequently see including yield signs, railroad crossing signs, and pedestrian crossing signs.  

Students were required to pass a “driver’s safety test” before being able to get behind the wheel of their cardboard box cars. Each class made cars for the event throughout the week and even teachers carried the educational message through other activities like following pictorial directions when they made traffic lights for snack. This made a memorable impression on kindergartener Daisy Hernandez.

“It’s important to learn about signs so you don’t get into an accident,” Daisy said.  

Martin Walker Elementary School Kindergarten Teacher Hillary Newton said the lessons met many of the students’ state learning requirements.

“My students thoroughly enjoy this activity, and it has so many educational benefits that I can’t see teaching these TEKS any other way,” she said.

TEKS are the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, the state standards for what students should learn in Texas and on which they are tested annually. Newton said the lesson covered a wide range of TEKS in several subjects including English/Language Arts, Social Studies, and Writing. Besides just teaching the state standards, Newton said the lesson was a great opportunity for teachers to reinforce safety for all students like kindergartners Madelynn Gorres and Za’Ron Lee.

“Cars should stop at a stop sign for safety,” Madelynn said.

“I learned how to drive safely,” Za’Ron agreed.

School faculty redesigned the hallway to replicate a roadway with a striped white line, a rotating stop light and crossing guards who were also kindergarten students that not only learned the rules of the road but also how to enforce them. Jayden Taijeron summed it all up in one sentence smiling from ear to ear as he displayed his new driver’s license.

“Driving a car was so much fun,” he said.