If you’re looking for a sweet, relatable story to explore perseverance, sustainability, and friendship in the early years classroom, The Wobbly Bike by Darren McCallum is a perfect pick. This beautifully illustrated book follows the story of a well-loved but wobbly bike—and the girl who sees its potential.
It’s a great springboard for all sorts of meaningful discussions and literacy activities. If you’re planning to use The Wobbly Bike in your classroom, here are five engaging activity ideas to help your students connect with the story, develop key skills and have a little fun along the way!
1. Design Your Own Dream Bike 🎨
After reading the story, invite your students to imagine what their perfect bike would look like. Would it have streamers? A rocket booster? Maybe even wings?
This is a great opportunity for a creative writing or drawing task. Students can label their designs, describe the features using adjectives, or even write a short description of how it works. You could differentiate this task by providing sentence starters or writing templates depending on student needs.
2. Describe the Wobbly Bike Using Adjectives 🛞
One of the loveliest aspects of this book is how the girl sees the value in something others see as broken. Use this as a chance to explore descriptive language and adjectives.
Ask your students:
- How would you describe the wobbly bike?
- What words would others in the story use?
- How do our words change based on how we feel about something?
Students can create a word bank of describing words, write sentences about the bike, or complete a short character-and-object description activity.
3. Procedure Writing: How to Ride a Bike ✏️
The story lends itself beautifully to procedural writing, especially if you’re teaching students how to write in steps.
Model the structure of a procedure (first, then, next, finally), then have students write a simple text titled “How to Ride a Bike.” You could differentiate this by offering picture prompts, scaffolded sentence starters, or space for illustrations.
This activity not only supports writing skills but also builds student confidence by connecting learning to a real-world skill.
4. Fix It or Buy New? Exploring Sustainability 🛠️
One of the lovely underlying themes in The Wobbly Bike is sustainability. While others in the story are focused on buying something new, the girl and her grandparents see value in fixing and reusing what’s already there.
Use this to open a class discussion around these questions:
- What do you usually do when something breaks?
- Can everything be fixed?
- Why is it important to fix things instead of throwing them away?
Follow up with an opinion writing task like “Would you rather fix something or buy a new one?” or a worksheet where students draw and describe something they’ve fixed before.
This activity is perfect for linking to Earth Day, sustainability units, or classroom values around caring for our things.
5. Make Text-to-Self Connections 🤝
This book naturally leads to personal reflections and conversations. Invite students to think about:
- A time they tried something that was tricky at first
- A time they helped or encouraged someone
- A time they gave something old a new life
Use drawing prompts, discussion circles, or simple writing tasks like “I felt like the girl when…” or “One time I fixed…”
Activities like this build empathy and help students connect the story to their own lives—one of the most powerful ways to foster a love of reading.
Bonus: Want These Activities Ready to Go?
If you’d like these activities already prepped and differentiated (including a word search, vocabulary tasks, questioning activities, and more!), check out my The Wobbly Bike Book Companion in my TpT store. It’s filled with low-prep print-and-go pages to make your planning easier and your lessons more meaningful.
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