The Bikes

As my cohort quickly goes from curious infants to wobbling wobblers to confidently moving toddlers, they continually seek new challenges to fit their new skill sets. The most recent challenge has been the bikes. At TIH we have an assortment of tricycles, balance bikes, and traditional two wheelers. All of them have been undergoing investigation by Cohort 5 during our daily outside time.

LC is more content to explore the tricycles. She often walks along with them but also experiments with the technique of lifting her leg over the middle so she can straddle the tricycle. Since the tricycle is much lower than the two wheeler, LC was able to master this rather quickly and has been working on moving the tricycle in this way. Below is a portion of a video I took of her hard at work:

IS mostly enjoys to walk with the bikes or sit by them and move the pedals. He's intrigued by how moving one pedal on the two wheeler causes the other to also move. Often he will sit next to the bike and move the pedal within his reach and watch to see if the other one will indeed move with it. With the continuous rain we have in the winter, IS and WG have also been focused on the water that collects on the seats of the tricycles. They enjoy putting just the tips of the fingers into the pool of water then splashing with their entire hand!

This intensifying interest in the bikes is the newest in the growing focus on movement within Cohort 5. As the weather continues to change and we see more and more rain than clear skies here in the PNW, it will be interesting to see how the children grapple with the struggle of a bicycle in the rain. The slickness of the pedals and the metal of the bike will add great challenges to our biking interest and a whole new area of work for us to explore!