I finally got on the ball and signed Sophie up for some out of the house activities. Sophie's little friend, Kennedy, is on her 2nd round of soccer classes called "Soccertots", so Alex and I decided we'd enroll Sophie and let her start her athletic career! =)
Her Grandpa and Grandma Robertson were so excited for her that they went and bought her some soccer pants, an entire Oregon Ducks gym clothing get up, shoes, and a soccer ball so she was ready to rock and roll!
We were really impressed with the class. It was a parents participate class and I had so much fun running around with our little Sophie. She was amazing! She surprised me by listening closely to her coach and doing what she was asked to do! They started with finding a colored spot to stand on. She picked the blue one. Then they picked up their spots and used them as steering wheels to run the length of the soccer field(a full size indoor soccer field).
This was the point where I think it clicked in for Sophie that we were there just for her to play and learn. She was thrilled! There are 3 little boys, plus Kennedy, in the class with Sophie.
Our little Ellie Jo stayed on the sidelines the first part and helped Alex play photographer.
After a warm up jog we met in the middle of the field to stretch! They have a lot of goals for this class. They don't just let the kids kick the ball around. They strive to teach some fundamentals(that go beyond soccer) and to work on the child's motor skills. It was awesome! As we stretched the coach talked about why we were stretching our muscles and was great to tell each kid how great they were doing.
I guess Alex couldn't resist this little smiling mug, so she got some camera time too! =)
After each "game" we lined back on the Red line and waited for our coach to direct us to what was next. Sophie hustled well each time and waited patiently. Again, we were thrilled, she is usually an "ants in her pants" type of girl! She behaved so good!
The coach brought out balloons! WOW did the kids all get excited! The idea of this game is for the kids to learn to not use their hands, and to kick the balloon as hard as they can over and over again. They also show, and try to teach, the kids how to use their heads and knees to move the balloon.
Sophie had a blast kicking the balloon......
We literally ended up making ground over the entire field kicking that balloon. I tried playing with her, and let's just say me kicking, and using my head and knees to move the balloon did NOT impress Sophie!
The next game was building towers with 4 different cones.
The idea was to build them then kick the ball in to them to knock them over. Most of the kids, including Sophie much preferred to just flat out kick the tower...so that is how the tower time went
Up until this point Sophie was extremely attentive to her coach and what she was suppose to be doing. But, her and Kennedy both got a little antsy and started running off.
Sophie finally got back on track and we practiced handing the soccer ball to each other with out touching it, only using the cones. Sophie did awesome at this but didn't care to try passing the ball from cone to cone when she had both cones......
she must've got tired of the "Ice Cream Cone" game above and wandered off and began a game of "Sophie's a puppy"! Too cute!
Around this time Alex and Ellie Jo made their way on to the field and Ellie got in some good play time with her pal Reagan (Kennedy and Reagan are sisters and they are both almost exactly the same ages as Sophie and Ellie)
The next game was "Monkey Tail". I got to chase Sophie around and try to pull the shirt hanging from the back of her pants off....then she got to chase me and do the same.
She giggled and ran like crazy.
The final game that they did was running the kiddos thru an obstacle course. It began with a slide. Then quick feet (tip toes) on about 10 colored spots, hitting each spot. Then they crawled thru a tunnel, coming out of it to stand and cross a low balance beam. From there they jumped on animal pads, and were to make the sound the animal makes, there was 5 different animals. Then with feet together to hop from the inside of one hula hoop into another and so on for 5 hula hoops. Sophie did AWESOME at the obstacle course! The first turn she had she busted right thru it doing everything perfectly, and fast, except she refused to make the animal sounds. She continued thru the obstacle course about 4 or 5 times. I was proud of her....some of the kids got caught up on the slide and just repeated the slide, but Sophie did the entire course start to finish each time! (Next time I'll snap some pictures of her doing the obstacle course)
To end the class they lined up on the Red line and kicked an actual soccer ball into the goal. Sophie was first to go and it took her about 5 kicks...but her final kick and her scoring kick was a pretty long distance! She was excited and high-fived me right away!
All in all, Alex and I were very happy we signed Sophie up for Soccertots, and can't wait to see how she does the next 6 classes of it!
We love our Bugaboos so much and can't believe that she is already big enough to be doing things like this, but we are so happy and blessed she is with us and healthy enough to be out in the world causing "chaos"!
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