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How to make traffic lights

Making robots/traffic lights:

There are various ways of making this resource depending on the availability of materials. Some suggestions of different materials are:

• coloured paper (red, orange, green) such as charts, paper from old magazines etc.
• coloured packing cardboards such as toothpaste box
• coloured computer printouts
• cloth material
• coloured plastic bags
• coloured flags or
• simply coloured pencils or crayons (if each child has them).

Given below is one simple way of making them with a white A4 sheet of paper and marker pens.

Educator note

Provide the following materials to the participants so that they can make their own robot/traffic light resource:

• A4 sheets of paper (one per three participants, but it is always better to have some extra)
• Red, Orange and Green marker pens
• Crayons/ coloured pencils/ paints (if available)
• Scissors/ long scale (if available)

Normally 10-15 minutes are sufficient for this activity if enough material is available for each participant. Enough material means that there is negligible or no waiting time for using material.

Where materials to make the resource are not available in sufficient quantities for classroom use, you could think of alternatives, such as children giving various hand signals corresponding to red / yellow / green.

Individual work (11 min). Follow these steps to make your own robot/traffic lights resource for AfL (see pictures for reference):

• Take an A4 sheet of white paper. Fold it along the long side into 3 equal parts (one sheet can make 3 sets of Traffic Lights). Cut along the folds with scissors or tear using a long scale to make 3 strips of paper.
• Fold one strip further into 3 sections along the short side.
• Write ‘RED’, ‘ORANGE’ and ‘GREEN’ (in capitals and bold) using the right coloured marker pens (if possible) on the three different sections. You can colour them with respective colours if crayons, coloured pencils or paints are available.
• Now reverse the strip of paper or keep it upside down. Then,
  • behind section RED, write: I’m stuck. I need some extra help. I don’t feel I have progressed.
  • behind section ORANGE, write: I’m not quite sure. I need a little help. I feel I have made some progress.
  • behind section GREEN, write: I understand fully. I’m okay without help. I feel I have progressed a lot.