Homeschooling by Grace and WonderfullyMadeKids Homeschool teamed up to spend an afternoon of fun and fellowship while doing MAPEH stuff together.
We started with a short devotion about Romans 12:9, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”
We shared our food and the kids spent some time free-playing, reading together and doing board games, as well as bit of basketball.
Then everybody went out to play “Kickball,” which is a striking/fielding game that is a fusion of baseball and soccer. Now, as with most things, the rules of the game and how it is played can be learned at home through books, google search and watching videos online. However, there is no substitute in actually trying to play it — especially since it is a team game. There are things you learn only from experience. Things like…
- How to explain that we’re going to play a game that is like baseball mixed with soccer when most of your kids don’t know how baseball is played. (Mental note: Teach baseball next) SOLUTION: Be patient and let them try it to learn the game as they play.
- The kids are told to tag the kicker by throwing the ball at him/her but the catcher throws it directly at the kicker’s face. SOLUTION: Explain further that the purpose of throwing the ball is to tag the player and not to injure him so they are not supposed to aim at the person’s face.
- What to do when one of the kids kick the ball too hard and it goes over the wall off to Neverland? SOLUTION: Modify the rules of the game. The ball we were using first was light and could be thrown at a player to tag him out. The ball that was left was too hard and heavy and would cause injury if we tried to throw it at the kicker. So instead of throwing the ball to tag someone, the catcher now has to hold on to the ball and touch the kicker with it to tag him out.
- How to deal with overeager players and parents. Like when the older kid pushes the little one who kicked the ball and now has to run the bases. Thankfully the little one wasn’t injured, but of course, there was much crying. SOLUTION: Try again next time. The bigger kid didn’t intend to hurt the little one — they were all just very eager to win and because they were not well-exposed to these kinds of team games, they were all trying to figure out how to play it well.
All-in-all, it was a good learning experience and a chance to practice patience, how to listen to and follow instructions, how to work with your team and how to have self-control. May they have learned that while rules are important, in certain situations, there are rules that can be modified. We hope they were able to practice how to persevere, how to learn from their mistakes, how to say sorry and how to forgive. And that while it is the goal of each team to win, it should always be everyone’s goal to be kind.
Thank You LORD for this day!
