Ready Kids › Out and About › Badge 4 › Lesson 4.2

Grades 4–5 · Out and About · Badge 4

The first minute

Stay put or go to the meeting point when you are separated, and never go looking.

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Step 1 of 9

1Look

You look round and they are gone

Still image

The moment

A crowded aisle at a market, seen from a kid's height. Legs and bags in every direction. No parent.

Your dial goes to Twitchy, maybe Scared. That is correct. The next sixty seconds are what this lesson is for.

2The idea

Do not search

Your parent is already looking for you. If you start looking for them, you are two people moving through a crowd trying to find each other, and that can take an hour. Every aisle you go down is one they might have just left.

One person stays still, or goes to the point. That person is you. It feels wrong to stand still. It is right. Standing still is the fastest thing you can do.

3The idea

Two right answers, and what you say

If you can see the meeting point, or you know exactly how to get to it, walk there. Steadily. That is where your parent goes when they cannot find you.
If you cannot, stay exactly where you are. Stand still. Let them come to you.
Either way, if there is a member of staff, say: “I’ve lost my mum. Her name is” and then her full name, and her number.

Not Mum. Her actual name. A member of staff can put a full name over a loudspeaker. They cannot do much with Mum. If you have a phone, ring or message, but do it standing still.

4The idea

The market, and the clock tower

Say it is you in the picture. Legs everywhere. The meeting point is the clock tower at the entrance, and you can see the top of it over the stalls. So you walk towards it, not fast, and you do not look down any aisles on the way.

You get there. Your mum is not there yet. You stand by it, and after ninety seconds she arrives, because that is where she went too. If you had gone back the way you came, you would have been walking into the aisle she had just left.

5Decide

You are in the middle of the market. The meeting point is the clock tower at the entrance.

Right. The clock tower is where your parent goes when they cannot find you, so it is where you go. If you cannot see it or cannot get to it, the other right answer is stand still where you are. Both beat moving through the crowd looking.

That is searching. Going back the way you came only works if they went back too, and they did not. Walking round is you moving while they move, which is how you both miss each other for an hour. Go to the point, or stay put.

Pick one to carry on.

6Say it

Your parent's full name and number

Say it out loud, clearly, as if to a stranger in a uniform

“My mum is called (her full name) and her number is (her number)”

Not Mum. Her actual name. A member of staff can put a full name over a loudspeaker. They cannot do much with Mum.

7Find them

Which of these are right in the first minute?

Tap the ones that count.

Find all 4.

8Your turn

Branching, one right answer

Interactive

The first minute

A crowd from above. You are a dot. At each choice you pick: stay, go to the point, or go looking. Only two paths end with you found in under two minutes, and both of them involve standing still at some point.

Try the wrong path on purpose once, to see how long it takes.

9Do it

Before you leave this page

Say your parent's full name and phone number out loud, from memory, to a parent, without looking at anything. If you cannot, learn it tonight. It is two words and one phone number.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Stay put, or go to the point. Never search. Searching is how two people get lost.

Next lesson: Who to walk toward

Badge 4 · In a Crowd

4.1Sixty seconds on the way in 4.2The first minute 4.3Who to walk toward ★Badge Challenge

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