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The Big Tadoo Puppet Crew paid a visit to LeConte Elementary School Tuesday to teach students about traffic safety rules. 

Hired by Alameda County’s Safe Routes to School, the puppeteers are on a county-wide 28-school tour, LeConte being their 26th stop.  

A spate of pedestrian accidents this year—including one that led to the death of 5-year-old Zachary Cruz, a student at the school—led the Berkeley Unified School District to collaborate with Alameda County’s Safe Routes to School to launch a traffic safety campaign in its schools. 

Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Mary Kusmiss said police were still investigating the fatal collision that took place when Zachary was on his way to an after-school program in March. She said the BPD Traffic Bureau had shared the investigation with another traffic-reconstruction expert for his review. 

District spokesperson Mark Coplan said this was the first time the puppet show had come to LeConte, and that next year it would take place at more schools throughout the district. 

Kindergartners through fifth-graders watched in wonder as Granny, June Roll-a-Lot and Freda Walk-a-Ton showed them how to walk and bike to school and provided tips against littering. 

“They will show you how to keep yourself safe when you are walking on the street,” Principal Cheryl Wilson told the kindergartners as they took their seats inside the school auditorium. 

“Stop, look and listen before leaving the driveway,” June Roll-a-Lot told the students before driving off on his bike. 

“Stop everytime at the edge of the street, use your head before your feet, make sure you hear every sound, look left, right, left and all around,” rapped Freda Walk-a-Ton, making the children repeat the lines after her. 

“I like this puppet show, it’s very cool,” said Jeannie Gee, Zachary’s kindergarten teacher who had brought her class to see the performance. “I think the more we revisit safe routes to school with the kids the more it sticks with them.” 

Zachary’s friend Achive Thomas watched with rapt attention as the puppets walked up and down the stage singing and dancing, breaking into an applause as they took their final bows. 

“Please tell everybody I enjoyed the show a lot,” Eve Lyford, another kindergartner told Granny, played by Emily Butterfly, before returning to her class. 

Butterfly said the Big Tadoo Puppet Crew has been promoting walking and biking to school since 2007 through their shows and that their funding had recently been renewed for another two years. The Safe Routes to Schools Program is funded in part with a major grant from Measure B -- Alameda County's half cent transportation sales tax.