Friday, October 14, 2011

Homeschool PE

Yes, this homeschool does PE. Not that we are trying to copy traditional school, but my children need physical activity everyday and I want them to be able to play sports their whole lives, be healthy and have some coordination.  I've found that large families see the need to have them outside everyday playing, running around, riding bikes, hiking in the woods and involved in sports. Boys particularly need to get their energy out. I'm not going to go on right now about the positives of sports in general (yes, I know there are some negatives too, but I feel with high parental involvement that the good out weighs the bad by far), I just wanted to give some good ideas we have used over our years of parenting and homeschooling.
We have chosen tennis as our family sport.  I have all my children, beginning around age 6, start playing.  I played growing-up and loved playing with my dad and siblings.  Ron and I decided early on that it would be great to be able to take our kids out as a family and play and that they would be able to play their whole lives if they wanted.  Anyway, I tell my children that if they were in a traditional school they would have no choice, but to go to PE.  So I keep my kids active daily and once a week I take them out on the court myself (I just started this up again) and I feed them balls and teach the scoring.  They hit with each other too.  As they get older I put them in tennis clinics and we do have a homeschool tennis team in our community that has been great too.  We also start our kids in soccer around age 6.  We have a recreation league that practices and plays games right in our neighborhood.  We can actually walk or ride bikes to the field, which makes it very convenient.  We've been involved in this league for 9 years now and have been really happy with it.  One of my sons was/is very talented in soccer so he left the league for a while to do a traveling, more competitive team.  This was just a little too much for us as a family and he wasn't loving it either.  He went back to rec and started playing more competitive tennis.  So I just wanted to encourage all those homeschoolers out there to fit some physical activity into your curriculum...especially something you can all do together.
Luke getting a tennis lesson from his older brother.
Ellie is actually my youngest girl soccer player.  She is doing great and loves it.  I just love watching her practically skip around the field with her bobbing pony tail : )

2 comments:

  1. We have PE in our homeschool too! I have five children, and we have chosen running as our family sport. My older three (12,14,and 16) all run on our homeschool cross country team. My younger two (5 and 7) run at their practices three times a week. The 5 year old a mile or less, and the 7 year old for 30 minutes. Of course both of them just walk and run. Anyway.....I agree. Our children need to exercise, and the key is finding something that the family enjoys and is convenient. Tennis is a great life long sport! I used to play a little bit of tennis.

    Have a super day! Your family is beautiful!

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  2. My family loves homeschool PE too!

    I have awarded you the Versatile Blogger Award! Come on over to my blog and see what to do!

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