Homeschool Soccer: Week 6

It was a very nice day at Homeschool Soccer today, a lot better than the rain last week!  Grant decided he wanted to participate in the soccer related activities more today :)

Stretching

They *attempted* to play an actual game with the 3 year olds today.  That didn't go so well.  Every few minutes someone had to go to the potty. Ha ha!  Grant did score a goal though!  Go Grant!

Kindle did wonderful as usual.  She gets goals and plays really well on defense.  Go Kindle!

 

Cooper did not get to play today since he didn't feel well on Tuesday.  I have been having him take it easy for the past couple of days, just to be safe.

We only have 2 more weeks of soccer left.  The kids have had such a great time and look forward to it all week.  I am so glad we decided to participate this year!

Homeschool Soccer: Week 5

It was a wet day at Homeschool Soccer today.  It had just started sprinkling, or as Kindle calls it sparkling, while we were headed to the park.  We hoped it would blow over.  Instead as we got out of the car, it actually picked up and got worst.  So, the kids had a fun day of soccer in the rain and mud.  Of course, they loved it!  I obviously didn't get my camera out in the rain.  Instead, I took some videos on my iPhone.  I was with Grant the entire time because Kindle and Cooper finished earlier because of the rain.  

Here is Grant and the 3 year olds doing jumping jacks.

And doing the helicopter stretch.

And touching their toes.

And "dancing" with the ball.

And kicking the ball uphill.

And playing with the parachute.

And more fun with the parachute.

The kids had a really great, wet day!

Homeschool Soccer: Week 4

It was another fun, but hot day at Homeschool Soccer.  Nathan's Dad, the kids call him Opa, came out to watch the kids play.  They were very excited to see him!   

I spent most of the day with Grant again.  

Today, he wanted to do all the non-soccer activities more than he wanted to play soccer.  Ha ha.  He couldn't wait to get the mat out and do flips and log rolls.

He also really enjoyed playing with the parachute.  He kept asking to keep playing with it over and over.  All of the other kids did too.  It is definitely one of their favorite parts of homeschool soccer.

Under the Parachute

Grant found a stick and decided to dig around too.  

He has also made a friend at soccer named Drew.  It is really sweet to see them playing together.  Here they are running down the big hill together.

We got to watch Kindle play for a few minutes today.  They were playing tag while dribbling their soccer balls.  

One of the highlights of the day is when they get to have ice pops.  Grant and Kindle enjoyed their ice pops while we watched Cooper's team finish up their game.

They 7 & 8 year old boys teamed up with the 7 & 8 year old girls today to play a game.  Cooper got to be goalie which is his favorite position to play.

He did really great as goalie.  He never let a ball get past him.  Here he is making a save.

The kids had a ton of fun again today and look forward to going back next week.

Homeschool Soccer: Week 3

We had another wonderful week at Homeschool Soccer.  I was able to get some photos of Kindle actually warming up and playing since Grant didn't have to go to the bathroom several times before it was his turn to play soccer....

I am really impressed with how well the 5 year olds are doing.  I will admit I had pretty low expectations when it came to a couple hours once a week playing soccer with kids that mostly haven't played before.  They had them all stretching.

Kindle is the one in the polka dot shorts & hairbow.

They have them run drills and practice basic skills.

Then, they scrimmage against each other, usually a 5 on 5 game.  Kindle was very excited because she got to be the goalie at one point.

She also does great on the field.  She got to take several shots at the goal and also did great on defense!

Grant had lots of fun today as well.  He is still taking a few minutes to participate because he acts shy, but once he does, he enjoys himself.
They did warm ups as well.  It was quite funny watching a group of 3 year olds.

Grant's version of jumping jacks

Twists aka Pretending to be a Helicopter

Grant's group did their usual kicking the ball at the goal and passing between players.  They also practiced headers (where you bounce the ball off your head at the coach or a team mate) today as well.  Their reactions were quite funny, it was kinda a love-hate thing.

Since I am the *only* Mom out there taking photos, one Mom came up to me to ask if it was picture day.  I told her no and that I wasn't aware there was a picture day.  One of the other Moms on Grant's team said that there actually is a picture day, but it wasn't till the end.  I guess that changed because about 30 minutes later a Mom with a camera comes walking over with her camera as well as the lady in charge of Homeschool Soccer and says it's time for team pictures.  I thought, "Oops, I guess I told that other Mom the wrong thing."  It was quite funny trying to get the kids to pose.  Grant was not interested AT ALL!  The coach had to literally hold him in the photo by the arm.  He told me he was done taking pictures.

Then, they told us each kid was going to get their photo with the coach.  Grant definitely wasn't interested in doing that either.  They convinced him by bribing him with getting to play bubbles next.

Once the pictures were over for the 3 year olds, he started playing bubbles.  So, I ran over to Kindle's field to get a few shots of her team.  Well the coaches thought I was the team photographer because like I said I am the *only* Mom taking photos of their kids.  I told them I wasn't and that I just wanted to snap a shot of my own while they were taking them.  The coach said, well we already have them lined up so go ahead and take a photo.  So I did.

I also snapped a shot later with Kindle and her coaches while the photographer was getting photos of all of the kids.

After Kindle and Grant were finished, we headed over to Cooper's field.  We didn't get to see him play for long since the pictures made everyone run later than normal.  Unfortunately, I missed the photos they took with their team and coaches.  I have been told they will be posted later so I should be able to get copies made.  I did get a few photos of him scrimmaging though.

Homeschool Soccer continues to be a great activity for the kids!  I am very glad we decided to participate!

Homeschool Soccer: Week 2

We had another fun day at homeschool soccer today.  Nathan was not there so I was not able to get as many photos as I would have liked to.  It is quite funny to me though because I am the ONLY person that I have seen taking photos of their kids playing soccer.  I did see one Mom last week with a video camera, but that is it.  They all look at me like I must be crazy.  Ha ha.

Grant did really good today.  He was a bit shy at first, but he warmed up pretty quickly.  He has really improved in just one week's time.  They asked me if we had been practicing at home.  They did some warm ups, practiced kicking it in to the goal, passing back and forth and they did some throw ins.  The also played bubbles and with the parachute.

Probably the favorite thing for the 3 years old is going to the top of the hill beside their field.  They kick their soccer balls down to the coaches.  Then, the coaches kick it back up to them.  They kept wanting to do that over and over.

Kindle did extremely well today too.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get any photos of her playing since she plays at the same time Grant is and I have to stay with him because of bathroom breaks.  I managed to snap a couple of photos of her once she was finished.

Kindle and Grant got their ice pops.  Then, we headed over to watch Cooper play.  Grant decided he wanted to be silly.

Cooper had a great time today as well.  He got to be team captain today and pick all of the kids for his team.  He thought that was pretty awesome!

While we were waiting for Cooper to finish, Kindle and Grant played tag.  They were singing the Laurie Berkner song, "I'm Gonna Catch You" while they played.  It was really cute!

I asked them if I could get a picture of both of them smiling and Kindle informed me that she was "all done with taking pictures".  Ha ha!

The kids can't wait to go back next week!

Week 2 of Homeschool & Potty Training

I am happy to say that we have completed week 2 of homeschooling.  Everything is continuing to go along very well.  Cooper had his first Phonics test today.  He scored a 100.  Woo Hoo!  He was very proud!

He is very good at school.  Last year, he typically scored 100 or only missed one or two questions on all of his tests.  It is very important to him that he does his best on all of his tests.  He is still mostly reviewing things he learned last year and practicing his writing.  We are also working on getting faster with his addition facts (2+2=4, 3+3=6, etc).  He is memorizing a poem and started his new spelling word list today.

Kindle continues to work on her phonics.  We are currently talking about all of the vowels and trying to figure out which vowel is in single vowel words (example: dig, dug, met, mitt, mutt).  She is doing very good and recognizing the sounds even better than I expected.  On the paper below, she had to circle the vowel that was in each word.  She got all of them correct!

She is also doing more cursive writing.  She can now write the letters "i, u and e".  She is very proud of herself!  She also is doing great at Arithmetic.  She already recognized all of the numbers 1-10 from Pre-K, so a lot of her Arithmetic has been review so far.  We found her Tinkerbell watch that she bought with her money last week, so that has also been great review of her numbers.

In other news, Celeste has decided that she is going to potty train herself.  She has been taking her diaper off daily and going to the potty on her own.  She is actually going both number one and two all on her own.  She is so proud!  The main thing I am having trouble with is convincing her that she doesn't have to go potty every 2 minutes.  Because it is such a fun adventure to her, she wants to go "try" whether she really needs to go or not.  She typically manages to go a couple of drops so that she can use the toilet paper (ooo), flush the potty (ahhh) and wash her hands (wahoo).  These activities are super fun to her!  Today, she only wore a diaper for naptime (which she ended up taking off).  I told her that she could wear her big girl panties that I got her for her birthday.  They are Minnie Mouse (her favorite).  She has been asking to wear them since June when she got them.  I have told her no in the past and that she had to wait till she could go potty.  I guess that was all the motivation she needed.

I definitely would not go as far as to call her officially "potty trained".  She didn't have any accidents today so she is doing really well.  I think that she should be totally trained very soon.

And lastly, I wanted to give you the conclusion to Grant's stitches.  It has been 10 days since the "incident" so Nathan took him today to have his stitches removed.  Everything has healed up nicely.  Grant, of course, thought it was a fun adventure going to the doctor today and did really great.  He is super happy because he can go swimming at Nana and Grandpa's pool this weekend.  I tried to get a photo of him when he got home from getting his stitches removed, but he was not interested at all.  Ha ha!  So here is a bonus picture of him from soccer yesterday.  I love the mini goal that had.  Just the right size for 3 year olds!

And since I am just throwing in a random photo of Grant, why not throw in a random picture of Gunnar (just to complete the set).  He is really into sucking on his bottom lip right now.  That is what he is doing in this photo.

Tomorrow begins Labor Day weekend.  Anyone got any exciting plans?