Winter done. Summer fun.

With winter an almost distant memory, outdoor activities during and after school are in full swing. The first graders have an after school football training session which they can join. In these photos you can see them playing. For the most part things go well, except that the students who are larger and further along in their physical development tend to dominate/intimidate the smaller less coordinated ones.




With children of this age even periods of no action is interesting to watch. The ball, as it does in football, went out and resulted in a goal kick. Goal kicks are defensive kicks and should mean nothing more than the defenders pushing up with the goalie kicking the ball towards them. However, at this level even a talk as simple as this needs some serious organisation, and with organisation I mean getting the children to actually look at the stationary ball for more than 2 seconds.

Some students, however, have absolutely no interest in the game. Their interest levels are so low that sticking their fingers into the ground is apparently more interesting. I caught Bobo, not his actual name, here doing it on more than one occasion. (To be fair, one of the photos is not of him, but I'm going to pretend it was him, for story sake.)




When the ball eventually came his way it was a sight to behold. The goalie kicked the ball impressively high and far. It looped straight towards Bobo. Hearing everyone scream at him he pulled his finger out of the ground, turned tail and started running towards his own goal. The ball landed right next to him bouncing high into the air. Only a second or two after the bounce, with other students catching up, did he even bother to look in the direction of the ball. It is the precise moment of him looking that I managed to capture here.

The rest of the game, when the ball came to close for him to completely ignore everything, he would run alongside the ball or crowd, just far enough to not actually have to do anything.

He was not the only one with little interest in the game. His friend, Dumbo here, not his real name, was a little more social, and sometimes got involved, but it never took much for him to be distracted from play.




So easy was it to distract him that when he saw me with he camera, the game was completely forgotten and he came running towards me swinging his arms in the funniest of ways. It is so easy to love the first graders (as long as I don't have to teach them)