Soccer and more!!

All decked out in soccer clothes, shin guards and soccer socks, ready for soccer clinic!

All the 4 year olds ready to go!

Grace is the one dead center in the picture with the purple shirt. This is towards the beginning where everything she is doing is a little delayed. You see all the other girls are already over listening to the coach.

The boys. They're the two to the right of the coach.

The boys sort of listening to directions. Like I said, they were pretty timid, but did do about half of the drills.

Well, the kids had their first day of Pre-K soccer clinic today. It was very interesting, let me tell you. First of all, let me comment about how some parents treat their 4 year olds like little professional soccer players, from their professional gear (cleats, Nike clothes, etc.) to yelling at them from the sidelines about what they're doing and giving them Gatorade breaks between drills. I suppose I should have been prepared for that, but I wasn't. There were about 100 4 year olds there, they divided them up into 4 groups. One group of girls and 3 groups of boys (I couldn't believe there were 3x as many boys as girls!!) So, Grace was by herself. That started out as a problem. She wouldn't do anything and just stood there, but she finally got into it and participated fully by the end. The boys were in a group together and were timid and shy together. They did sort of participate, but not as much as I'd hoped. We're going to try to talk about that this week and hopefully we'll see some improvement. But, they did have a lot of fun and talked about it all day. The clinicians (several college/20 something guys, a few from across the pond) made it really fun for the kids. They primarily did drills they turned into games. Their balls were cars and they had to put gas in their car, or give it a wash. They also played a couple of games like "Red Light, Green Light" and "What Time is it Mr. Wolf?". The kids knew these from swimming lessons and had fun. Grace's group played a SpongeBob game which she thought was great.

I realize it's been a long time since I updated. We don't have a lot to report, but I can think of a few things of note. Preschool is going well. Mrs. Thimijan has been great about splitting them up to do activities. She said when she separated Grace from the boys for Show and Tell, she talked their ears off. That gives me some hope that when we separate them in Kindergarten they will come out of their shells!! They really like preschool and that time there is so good for them (and me!! I've been getting tons done during those mornings. Our house is almost clean most of the time!!) With some of our extra afternoons at home, we've been working hard on reading and writing. The kids love to do worksheets and read first reader books. The BOB books have been great, (they are some early kindergarten easy readers). They can all read the first few of those. I've been printing worksheets from online and they really enjoy doing those. Some are rhyming or filling in missing letters, other are mazes, patterns, dot to dot and more. I've decided to do some informal time each week when we read and do other academic type things when we have some time. I think they really need that, too!! Their imaginations are on fire lately! They will disappear into a bedroom or downstairs for hours without a peep. When I go looking for them I find them doing all sorts of things like playing house, having tea parties, playing school. You name it, they are doing it. They played restaurant this morning at Grandma Ellen's, Grace was a waitress, Xander was the cook and Will cleaned. They have it down to a science!! It's neat to see their imaginations and (for the most part) they play together really well. When they're not inside pretending things, they're outside playing "ship" on the swingset or riding bikes (which they still do a lot in the evenings with Brian!!)

I am also glad to report our behavior has improved a lot. The star chart is still going strong. Grace and Will earned a 3rd prize. Xander has yet to get the 3rd one and Grace has lapped him. She's only one star away from earning her 4th and Xander is 3 stars away from his 3rd. Aside from some problem days here and there, overall they have been really good. We're even to the point of letting the walk around the grocery store or Target. I had my first lesson in "letting go" and "letting them be independent" last week. It was Saturday morning, I was inside cleaning. Brian was outside mowing and the kids were riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk. They asked Brian is he would take them riding around the block, but of course, he couldn't because he was mowing. So, Brian came inside and said "I'm going to let them ride around the block by themselves, OK?" I, of course, was hesitant because we have a huge block, but said OK. He talked to them about not crossing the street, watching for cars backing out and not talking to anyone. They left and came back a couple of minutes later, with no problems (even though Grace said Xander fell over, once.) They were pretty proud of themselves, but I did fret for that entire 5 minutes!!! I will admit, it is neat to see how independent they are now. OK - I think this is getting a little long so I'll save more news for later. Thanks for checking up on us!