Raleigh school joins movement to teach kindergarten students to ride bicycles
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Green Elementary joined All Kids Bike to teach kindergartners bicycle skills.
- The $9,000 program includes balance bikes, helmets, and a physical education curriculum.
- Life Time Foundation funded 10 schools, boosting early fitness and motor development.
Gym class will get even more fun for kindergarten students at Green Elementary School now that they’ll learn how to ride bicycles.
The gym at Green Elementary, located off Six Forks Road near Raleigh’s North Hills community, erupted in cheers Thursday afternoon when the kindergarteners learned that a set of 24 bicycles had been donated to their school. Green will join the All Kids Bike program that uses physical education classes to teach kindergarten students to ride bicycles while at school.
“We’re in North Carolina,” said Leslie Blake, Green’s principal. “The weather is beautiful for a large part of the year and this is another way to encourage kids to get outside, have a life skill that can continue to feed into healthy habits.”
All Kids Bike was founded by the Strider Education Foundation, which partners with Strider Bikes, makers of pedal-less balance bicycles.
The non-profit group cites statistics such as how only 25% of children will ride a bicycle this year and the rise in childhood obesity and time spent on digital devices for the benefits of teaching children to ride bicycles.
“Bike riding is a key developmental milestone for children and an essential life skill that provides numerous benefits for fitness, mental health, exercise, and transportation,” according to All Kids Bike. “Learning how to ride in Kindergarten aids in the development of gross motor skills, judgment, and confidence.
Teaching bicycle riding at a young age
All Kids Bike is now used in 1,733 schools and is teaching 158,864 students to ride this year. The goal is to have 1,588.640 learn to ride over the next five years.
It’s a one-time cost of $9,000 to start the program at a school. The program includes 24 balance bicycles that can be converted to include pedals, a bicycle for the instructor, helmets and a curriculum that includes lesson plans, games and activities.
The program relies on donations, including the $90,000 provided by the Life Time Foundation, a non-profit group which says its goal is to foster healthy people. Life Time’s donation will allow programs to be started at 10 schools, including at Green.
“Some kids don’t have access to bicycles and even if they do have access to bicycles, they don’t necessarily have somebody able to teach them,” said Tori Pellegrino of the Life Time Foundation. “The earlier they learn, the longer they have the skill to take them through life and the earlier we’re getting them active.”
Go to https://allkidsbike.org/ for more information on the All Kids Bike program.
Learning to ride like a ‘big kid’
After getting the news about the program on Thursday, the kindergarten students got a chance to ride the bicycles. Students cheered “let’s go” as their classmates rode one class at a time around a circle of cones.
For now, the students aren’t using the pedals as they learn how to balance themselves on the bicycles. But the pedals will be added over time.
“It’s good to ride a bicycle so you can learn how to ride it when you’re a big kid,” said Skylar Gwynn, a kindergarten student at Green.
The exeprience was a big surprise for kindergarten student Rodney Cates. He tried to do tricks soon after getting on the bicycle.
“It was cool,” Cates said.
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 4:44 PM.
