Ready Kids › Home Alone Ready › Badge 1 › Lesson 1.4

Grades 4–5 · Home Alone Ready · Badge 1

The key

Arrive with the key ready, without showing anybody you let yourself in, and know where to go if it is lost.

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Step 1 of 10

1Watch

Two arrivals

Film

Two arrivals

The same doorstep twice. First: key out from the corner, swinging on a lanyard, a long fumble at the lock. Second: hand goes into a pocket on the path, and the film stops as the key touches the lock.

20 seconds

Nothing else changes between them. Same kid, same door, same afternoon.

2The idea

What a key on a string tells people

A key outside your shirt says two things to anybody who looks: you let yourself in, and there is probably nobody home when you do. Neither of those is anyone’s business.

A key in your hand from the corner says the same thing to half a street. So it lives in a pocket or a zipped bit of your bag, and it comes out on the path, not at the gate and not on the step.

3The idea

The arrival, in order

Off the street, hand in pocket.
Up the path, key in hand.
In.
Door locked behind you.
Then the message home.

Ready before the path, not on the doorstep. The doorstep is the one place you do not want to spend a minute with your head in a bag. The whole arrival should take less time than reading this card.

4The idea

Jonah gets to the door and the pocket is empty

He does not tip his bag out on the step. He walks to Mrs Okafor’s, two doors down, which is the backup his family agreed in September. He messages his mum from her hallway. Then he looks through his bag at her kitchen table. The key was in the bag.

You look for it somewhere that is not your own locked front door. Every family needs one backup, agreed in advance: a neighbour who is usually in, a shop, a friend’s house. If you do not know yours, that is tonight’s job.

5Order it

The arrival, in order

Interactive

Tap them into order

Five steps, shuffled. Tap them in the order you actually do them. The card locks when it is right and then plays the arrival at real speed.

Off the street, hand in pocket. Up the path, key in hand. In. Door locked. Then the message.

6Decide

Three arrivals. Which one gives nothing away?

That one. Nobody on the street learned anything. Notice that it is also the fastest of the three, which is not an accident. The quiet arrival and the quick arrival are the same arrival.

Look at what each one shows the street. The lanyard says you let yourself in. The open bag on the step says you cannot get in and nobody is coming. The pocket says nothing at all, and nothing is what you want to say.

Pick one to carry on.

7Say it

The message from the backup place

Say it as if you are typing it, short and plain

“Locked out. I'm at Mrs Okafor's. Message me here.”

Swap in your own backup. You will send it from their hallway, not from your step.

8Decide

You get to the door and the key is not in your pocket.

Right. The key might well be in your bag. You look for it somewhere that is not your own locked front door. Every family needs one backup, agreed in advance, and it needs to be somewhere with an adult in it.

Think about who is watching. Both of those leave you outside a locked house, visibly unable to get in, for a long time. Move first, solve it second. The bag can be searched at a kitchen table two doors down.

Pick one to carry on.

9Build it

Agree your backup place

Interactive

Backup card

Fill in the place, who is usually there, their number, and what you would say when you got there. It saves to your family card.

Do it with a parent. A backup you picked on your own is a guess, not a plan.

10Do it

Before you leave this page

Practise taking your key out and opening your front door in under five seconds without looking at your hands. Three goes.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Key in a pocket, ready before the path. Lost key: the backup place, not the step.

Take the Badge Challenge

Badge 1 · Getting Home

1.1The route you agreed 1.2The shortcut you walk past 1.3Head up 1.4The key ★Badge Challenge

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