Physical Education

I have wanted my kids to take a PE class for some time but they always seemed to be scheduled at the same time we had other classes. But starting in January they changed the day of the week to a day and time we could attend. I quickly signed all four kids up for the class.

The class is done at a local park. Each month they are going to learn and play a different sport or game. January's sport was Basketball and February is Dodgeball.  My kids were a little skeptical about the class at first.

There are quite a few younger kids in the class but out of the 20 or so kids in the class there is another 14 year old girl that attends and that made Sophie happy. Ian was a little sad that he is the oldest boy. Henry is just happy to be out doing something. Molly is happy to be included in something. She is almost always too small or too young to do most things.

I am happy that they are getting to play some of the sports I remember learning and playing for p.e. or at recess when I went to school.

In addition to this new class which the kids have enjoyed the past few weeks, I signed Sophie up for a Fitness class through Williamsburg Academy.  Originally I thought it would count as the Health class the Charter school we belong to required for High School. But it is more of a P.E. class so they won't count it. But Sophie is doing it anyway and it has been good for all of us. It is a self paced class but each week she has to complete and report on an assigned activity.  I had had all of us do these weekly assigned activities. Henry loves this! He can never get enough outdoors, active activities. Ian is a bit more work but if I do it too then he is happy to also do it. Molly is just happy go lucky and goes with the flow of whatever we drag her to do. We mapped out a mile course near our house and we have had to run/walk that mile course three times this week trying to get it faster each time. None of us being runners we are not very fast and walk most of it but still can make it the mile in about 10 min, even Molly! but sometimes she is allowed to go on her scooter. Henry did it once on his roller blades just for a change of pace.

All this exercise made Henry decide he needed to go to park to play Tennis one afternoon.

 They do little more than hit the balls back and forth. They don't play a game and rarely get a volley. I asked Henry if he was tired of just chasing the ball. He said "yeah but it is a good tired". He just really loves to be out running around.

 Molly was the official ball retriever. She had her scooter out so she could zip around the courts and pick up the stray balls. She would then toss them to the boys so they could continue to try to hit balls to each other.

Oh and the boys are both playing basketball with the Boys and Girls club. A season at the B & G club is way cheeper than a season at the local rec. club.  They boys were on different teams which meant we were having to juggle two practices during the week and  two games every Saturday for the last few months.

 I kinda talked the boys into playing. Neither one was overly thrilled about doing it. They had never played basketball before. But I thought it would be good for them to at least play that game and know the rules.

 Ian attended 11 year old scouts last year and when they were done doing what ever scouts do they would often go shoot hoops in the gym. Ian would come and sit in the foyer with me while we waited for Sophie's activity to finish. He didn't know how to play hoops so wasn't comfortable hanging around in the gym with the bigger boys. My thought was that after a season of playing basketball he would be more likely to join in with the others after mutual activities.

Sophie is thinking of playing basketball again this spring. It would start in a few weeks. Which means our basketball schedule won't be much different even when the boy's season ends next week.

All this Physical activity is good for us. We are not the most athletic family. We are not going to win any awards and be any sort of "all stars" but getting away from screens and out of the house doing something active has been really good for us!

Sorry all these pictures in this post are so horrible. I really need to remember to bring the actual camera. I end up using my phone to snap quick pictures. It documents the event but it really doesn't do a great job!