By: Keely O’Keefe

Have you ever seen a surfboard with wheels? Well if you have it’s just like a skate board! If you take off the wheels that are attached to the skate board it is just like a snow board. So if you’ve ever snow boarded you might be good at skate boarding! Skate boards were first invented when two boys put wheels on their surf boards! They got bored of surfing so they went to a roller blade shop and bought roller blades and connected them to their surf boards. Now people called the surf boards with wheels side walk surfboards. A year after, they started calling surf boards with wheels side walk surf boards they changed the name to skate boards. In 1965 skate boards were shown on the Life Magazine that year. There are many different ways to build skate boards and some ways are very interesting.

People usually buy skate boards at a store but did you know that you can build a skate board yourself? You can buy all the parts you need at a store! Isn’t that cool!? You can get the parts at a skate board store and then you just need some screws and nails. Would you rather build your own skate board or buy it at a store? I don’t know about you but I would rather buy mine at a store. I think it is a lot easier to buy it then build.

Have you ever done a safety cheek before you skate board? If you haven’t you can get very hurt! It is very dangerous. You should also wear the right padding. If you don’t wear the right padding or do a safety cheek you can break a bone. This is the padding you should wear. A helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist cards, and if you’re doing tricks you should wear gloves so you don’t scrap your hands on the pavement. If you don’t wear gloves your hands can get vary scraped up.

Some people do a lot of tricks on the streets or sidewalks. It can be very dangerous! I think that you shouldn’t do tricks until you have been skate boarding for a long time. There is a different name for doing tricks on sidewalks and streets… its street skating! You don’t just skateboard on sidewalks and streets you skate on benches and hand rails. If you just are starting to do trick you should just do tricks on the side walk and street. It can be very dangerous if you do it so you should all wear the right padding.

If you’re just learning to skate board you should start out at a place with not many cars. It should also be a place where the pavement is smooth. You should also never skate after dark and be very careful about cars. It’s very dangerous to skate on streets and if you are you should wear reflective clothes. I hope you liked learning about skate board’s!