Nicky has always been a fan of kicking balls. In fact, he used to have a special way of placing the ball on the ground before he kicked it. We have signed him up for Playball at school. I watched the demo lesson and they work with balls, cones, hoops and beanbags. I know we have to grab any opportunity that comes our way to get him to engage with this passion so at my husband’s suggestion we decided to enroll him for our closest Little Kickers in Randpark Ridge.
We did a bit of preparation to get him excited for the day. The 
evening before Dear Husband took him outside while I was busy with supper and they did a cool sequence of sliding down the slide and then kicking the ball. From the pictures it looked like they had a lot fun with that.
The next day we were getting dressed and I wanted him to wear his takkies, which would be best for kicking. Of course a huge argument ensued because he wanted to wear his “light shoes” (which light up as he moves – his croc car shoes). DH was quite clever and hit on the idea of showing him videos of the Little Kickers and explaining that that was where we were going and why we needed to wear the shoes. After that he was quite keen and put them on.
DH also filmed him in the car going there, asking him where we were going.
When we got there we received his outfit which further completed the look and I have to say he looked super cute. My little soccer player.
The class itself was about 45 minutes and two coaches were there to aid the kids. They split the kids into different age groups.
They had a lot of fun kicking cones over. They even kicked three cones over at a time. Nicky enjoyed that.
One thing I noticed as a teacher was the use of different cognitive instructions e.g. having to run in a certain direction and turn a certain way, and then switch sides and do the same thing mirror image. I think this was a good spatial challenge because Nicky nearly went the wrong way when they switched sides.
They also did an exercise where they had to fetch a disc, place it on a cone and then run and kick the ball into the goal. This is a really good exercise for remembering more than one activity and also promotes dexterity when sliding that disc on the cone.
Nicky really enjoyed himself at Little Kickers and had a lot of fun. The coach thought he was good too. 🙂 We celebrated by having some ice creams afterwards.
Such a cutie, and it is amazing how quickly they grow.