Friday, January 2, 2009

Learning to Ride a Bike

Learning to Ride a Bike in Less than 15 Minutes (and create a 2 minute iMovie about it in 9 hours.)



My Christmas presents to my daughter and granddaughter were bicycles. During my trip out west to visit, I hoped to help my granddaughter begin to learn to ride the bike.

My own experience in learning to ride a bike was not fun, with my Dad eventually threatening to take the bike back. (ACK!) My daughter was no faster a study, though I didn't threaten her in the process. So the two of us expected a long drawn out process in teaching her little one.

We took her to the top of a low hill in a park and let her roll down several times. As soon as we suggested that she put her feet on the pedals, she started pedaling. My daughter and I laughed ourselves silly at how quickly the process went.

I videoed the event and when I got home I made a video of it in iMovie. I'm still inching up the learning curve with all things Mac, and so this took MUCH longer than teaching the granddaughter to ride the bike.

Anyway, this was one of the highlights of my trip.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jan! This is so great!! We squealed for her! Now, maybe I could bring Bea down to you when the time comes?! : ) I'm sort of a super klutz on a bike. In fact, maybe you could start me over, too...

Your voice!

Diana said...

Wow, that's impressive. I've been trying to teach my 6 year old niece to ride a bike, but we live inner city. Must find a grassy slope. Well done on your video and editing skills.

Sara Bowen said...

Really cool, Jan! My 6 year old daughter just watched your video and is really impressed... our job this vacation is to teach her to ride her bike, and now she's feeling inspired instead of terrified. Fingers crossed! Sara x

ZenCrafter said...

Jan, what a brave granddaughter you have, and what impressive teaching skills YOU have. You don't know how hard it was to overcome my older kids' reluctance to take off the training wheels. So I think child #3 will get your method tried out on him when the time comes--no training wheels!!

Your granddaughter is adorable!