A Central Asia project
As you can see from reading the Alpamysh, horse racing was a big part of Central Asian culture. You probably don’t have horses to ride, but you could have bike races and get some of the same feeling. Find a public racetrack in your neighborhood and use that for your bike race.
What’s the Alpamysh?
Where do horses come from?
Central Asian games
All our Central Asia articles
What kind of bike race?
There are lots of different ways to organize a bike race. You could just all start at the same time and see who gets around the track fastest. Or you could organize a relay race. Maybe it would be fun to hold a race where you have to bike around once and then run around once.
Who invented bicycles?
Will you have prizes?
What will you use for prizes? Should there be prizes? Central Asian horse racers often won money, or fancy silk clothing.
Silk clothing
History of money
Practice makes perfect!
In Central Asian culture, people held bike races because they wanted their kids to know how to ride well when they grew up. Today, knowing how to ride a bike well is also a useful skill, and this bike race project will help you to ride better, just as the Central Asian races helped kids a long time ago.
Did you find a fun activity for your group from this article? Let us know what you did in the comments! It will help other teachers, parents, and students figure out good ideas.
Central Asian board games
Learn by Doing – Central Asian games
Bibliography and further reading: