Posts
Join Blogroll
Ball Four: Baseball
There are always going to be things that you have meant to teach your children that have somehow fallen through the cracks. This is true whether you homeschool or not.
I have found one of those things. Sports.
My kids are active and strong. Ellie does 5 1/2 hours of dance and 1 1/2 hours of gymnastics every week. Kate and Lexie are both in gymnastics also and have done dance on and off. I occasionally put them in swimming when lessons come around. They ride bikes in the summer. They are not couch potatoes.
But, they have missed out on "traditional" PE classes. I'm not saying that this is a horrible thing, but that, paired with the fact that we watch ZERO sports in our house, means that my children don't know basic sports rules and terminology. Heck, they can't even differentiate between some of the sports. I'm not kidding. Soccer? Baseball? Football? Basketball? They know that they are all balls and that is about it.
Ellie pretty much knows which ball is which. She reads a lot and has seen movies, so she gets the gist of it. She has also played volleyball for a couple of summers. The other kids are absolutely clueless though.
I have noticed this quite a few times in the past couple of months. Occasionally, there is a math problem or some other schoolwork that assumes that you know things like where home base is (or what home base is for that matter!)
My kids don't know how to play baseball. How un-American is that? I remember that we played kickball once at a homeschool gym day and my kids had no idea where to run or what they were doing the entire time.
So, I am thinking that maybe it's time for some team sports. T-ball sign ups are going on right now. I don't know that I want to commit to a bunch of Saturdays on the sidelines though.
Maybe I need to turn the TV on once in a while and explain the basic rules of some of the different sports.
I don't know, but I should probably do something. Shame on me!
4 comments:
Don't beat yourself up too much! Our public school kids have PE for a HALF AN HOUR EVERY 5TH DAY. No kidding. PE is a 'special class' that rotates space with Korean Culture, Music, Art, and Computers.
But then up until moving to Korea, we had baseball on and football on all through their respective seasons.
Big fans. Huge fans. the kind that would live in their Suburban to pay for season tickets if only the Army would move us closer to GREEN BAY.
I can SO relate to this! I had this same realization one day so I decided to teach the kids basic games like kickball and softball. I really need to go back and do that again with them; they've probably forgotten by now. Oh yeah, we also got a cheap badminton set. My kids have always been more individual sports kids than team sports kids. My youngest 2 did each play soccer for 2-3 years, but my oldest did fencing, tennis, skiing and golf!! He probably has not a CLUE how to play baseball!
Other sports are not especially important at this point...the children are fully integrated into gymnastics, swimming, dancing, put-put golf, bowling-those all have rules and guidelines. You're doing a great job of keeping them involved and athletic. Mom W.
Um, yeah, I'd be right there with you Jennifer. :P No team sports here. Mainly because it would be like pulling teeth to get C to do it! :) He takes after his Mama. We've been to plenty of games though when we were in Denver. Does that count?
Post a Comment