at Westlake Charter. The prep room/extra teaching space for all four 5th grade classrooms. Doug, BarbaraL, Kathy, Gina, Deanna:
Kathy and I had the Blue group today – all had excellent skills.
Kathy did a great job teaching one of the classes.
Last Friday, I led the first day of street rides for Project Ride Smart at Regency Park Elementary. I had the Blue group – excellent cyclists, ready to learn more on our rides. Every one of the four classes was great and I had no sweep and a couple of groups with 9 students. I forgot to take pictures, but no problem, I would be back on Monday and Tuesday.
However, on Monday morning, as we were getting all the bikes out of the classroom where they were stored, I tripped on a kickstand and fell. HARD on my left knee. Not good. The PRS team and school personnel moved into action. Cheryl picked up me and my bike and took “us” home. I was able to drive myself to a Kaiser urgent care. Whew! Nothing broken. Two days of rest and I would be just fine (really?). This was me Monday through Wednesday doing RICE: rest, ice, compression, elevate.
Thursday. Nope, I am not 100%. In fact, I need two more weeks of RICE. Sigh.
Such a fun week.
Christy, wearing an orange shirt in the center is also the Parent Champion at Regency Park. Every morning, students who walk to school check in with her to record the time they’ve spent walking or riding their bikes to school. They earn rewards for their efforts.
Friday was Street Ride #3 and it was a bit warm. The sprinklers in the park were on and we let the kids ride through them. Of course a few kids came back totally soaked. The bikes were parked, we all went back to the classroom, and returned the jerseys and helmets. One boy came up to me and said, “Can I have a hug?” Well, yes. However, I should have noticed that gleam in his eye – he was one of the totally soaked kids. Then it became a group hug. Oh yay – ?
The new West Sacramento neighborhoods near Stonegate Elementary and Bridgeway Island have wonderful protected trails for riding and walking.
This is half of the bike club. Jim Brown rode with the other half of the club.
Now that all basic street-riding skills have been taught, it was time to practice those skills on the street. Which we did. Then we rode a cool trail with a (sort-of) round-about. All the boys loved riding around and around, relatively fast, laughing all the way.
Christopher, Connor, and Tyraun
Logan and Matthew
Andrew
Congratulations, Justine, you are about to be a bicycle rider! Every 5th grader at Regency Park can ride a bike. Christy and I did a one-hour after-school coaching session last Friday and today.
In addition to Project Ride Smart in the mornings, I also coach after-school bike clubs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Thursday club at Westfield Village started just this week and we will only have 6 meetings.
On Tuesdays, I’m at Stonegate Elementary and have 6 members. On Wednesdays, I’m at Bridgeway Island Elementary and have 25 members! This requires a whole different teaching strategy and more LCIs to lead the street rides. And there are only 3 club members at Westfield Village. Sweet! My biggest problem appears to be an inability to take pictures and coach at the same time. Thus, the above picture is the only one I’ve taken over the course of 10 club meetings in 5 weeks.
Project Ride Smart at Regency park began Tuesday. I’m working with two new LCIs who are also new to teaching Project Ride Smart – Christy Lewis and Sue Schooley. 
The melon drop:
This melon didn’t wear a helmet:
Mr Young is so supportive. He came to after-school coaching on Friday and taught one student how to ride a bike while Christy and I worked with 4 other students. He also spent extra time reinforcing some of the concept we taught.
Veteran LCIs and about-to-become LCIs got together today for some ride leader training at the Jibe office. Mellissa Meng was the organizer.
We spent 2 hours on bikes in small groups on the streets around Natomas Park Elementary practicing good teaching techniques. Hopefully Project Ride Smart will soon have some new instructors.
Back to last Wednesday. There was another bike club at Bridgeway Island Elementary in West Sacramento. Again, we didn’t know if anyone would show up. We got 6 kids at Stonegate. How many would show up here? Uhhh .. 25. And it was raining buckets! We met in a PE classroom and I winged it. Taking pictures? Maybe next time.
Today was Week 2 at Stonegate. This is a fun group. Smaller class size = get more done!
L-R: Andrew, Connor, Logan, Matthew, Christopher, Naia
arletelouise 