Students build new tricycle track for Pre-K students at Tazewell Primary School

Tara Wyatt, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, W.Va.
·2 min read

Mar. 23—By TARA WYATT

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

TAZEWELL, Va. — Since October of last year, masonry students at the Tazewell County Career and Technical Center and SkillsUSA team members have worked on a new tricycle track for Pre-K students. A celebration of that tricycle track's opening was held Friday.

"Just seeing how excited the little kids are for the new track is just great for our community," first year officer for SkillsUSA Ella Lawson said during the event at Tazewell Primary School.

The project began last year when Pre-K teachers shared their tricycle idea to Masonry Instructor Robert Steele to discuss opportunities for the students.

"This project just fell in our lap," Steele said. "The Pre-K teachers approached me and had a grant that they wanted us to possibly use to build a tricycle track because they didn't have a place for the students and special needs students to ride them."

Lindsey Mullins Woodard, public relations director for Tazewell County Public Schools, was proud of the opportunities the project allowed.

Woodard said the tracks provide a safe place for students to play and improve their gross motor skills.

"This project is dynamic because it not only allows our masonry students to work but it encompasses a few other shops too." Woodard said. "The carpentry students helped, the welding students made the sign, and the auto body painted the sign."

The track is an enclosed space for teachers to monitor the students, safely away from the road.

From time to time, the masonry students would visit the school on weekends to continue working on the project for the kids.

"It was kind of a long process, the boys spent some weekends on their own time getting it ready to go," Steele said. "We wanted to get it done before winter so we pressed time in November, so we actually had the concrete on before winter."

Allowing kids the opportunity to learn how to ride a bike while creating a safe environment to do so was important to masonry student Dylan Belcher.

"We wanted to help kids learn how to ride a bike and help the kids with disabilities," Belcher said. "It's important that they learn how to ride a bike and that they get to learn to do those things early on; ever since they've seen all the concrete pour from us, they've been excited ever since."

— Contact Tara Wyatt at twyatt@bdtonline.com