Soccer Madness

When planning this trip we tried to think of different ways we could engage the kids at Achiever's Academy in addition to the academic lessons that Anghelika was planning. One idea we had was to bring some soccer balls and play with the kids during recess. So we found a great deal online for a bulk purchase of 10 soccer balls and also brought along a pump and a handful of pump needles. Over the past few days we kept thinking about how we would work in some soccer play but with such a small playground and so many kids out during recess it just wasn't looking good. Then we finally had an idea -- ask the teachers. Doh! They were more than happy for us to take kids out of class for this. So today Rajesh and I took about a dozen boys out of an afternoon class, grabbed two balls and headed out to play. (1st thing to remember -- just take one ball) We setup the goal posts out of whatever rock and bricks were lying around in the sand, formed two teams, picked out goalies, lined up the teams and pretended that we were going to play soccer. (2nd thing to remember -- assess the kids abilities before jumping into the activity) Then we proceeded to have chaos. We tried really hard to get our teams to pass the ball to each other, but were just happy that they could manage to kick it in the right direction. Two crying boys later Rajesh had the idea to have the boys take turns kicking the ball towards a goal guarded by an energetic goalie. Great idea Rajesh! Now what to do with all the extra soccer balls?