March 02, 2009
Bunchball
Once a week, for thirty minutes, we go to the Wackford gym where Dax and 12 other 3 and 4 year olds are learning to play soccer.
I don't know who first referred to pee-wee soccer as "bunchball" (because the little ones tend to just "bunch" around the ball) but that's just such a perfect name for it. That is, once all the kids figure out that this is a game and that the point is to kick the ball into the net.
He's only had a couple of classes and, for the first one, they really only ran around a lot and learned how to do different sorts of kicks. By the second one the instructors taught the kids how to throw the ball into play and how to kick it into the goal. The kids were doing so well that they figured they'd have them do a little scrimmage.
They set up two small nets on each side of the gym (width, not length) and divided the class into two teams. (That alone was quite a task as at least two of the children were distracted by the basketball hoops and one decided it would be a whole lot more fun to stand in one corner and spin.) One of the coaches rolled the ball out between two lines of small children who stood there and stared at it until the other coach took a small girl by the hand and encouraged her to kick it. She did. Completely perpendicular to the proposed line of play.
A few of the kids decided to just go with it and complete chaos ensued.
Looks like they will need a few more classes before they are organized enough to play bunchball.