1st Basketball Ball Game Ever

Well, what can I say. There is room for improvement. :) She pretty much went from knowing vvery little about basketball (& I mean very little) to going to a handful of open gyms and about 10 practices to playing in her first tournament. They have 11 on the team, but only 10 were there (one girl was grounded I guess). So, the coach pretty much split them in 2 teams of 5 and gave them equal playing time. He said he doesn't care if they win at all, just wants to see where they are all at and figure out what they need to learn so they can be better. I think they have 7 tournaments on the calendar this winter.

She goes between playing forward and guard. Mom was only able to watch the first game as Henry couldn't really handle being there for nearly 5 hours and dad was traveling all last week so he wanted to be able to be there for her (mom gets swim!). After her first game she said she was so confused and has no idea what is all going on.

I think she has the potential to do well. She certainly has the ability and determination, but she has so much to learn about the game itself so everything starts to make more sense and then the self confidence will follow, but I guess she did take 3 shots in the final game.

Oh, they lost all their games. But I guess they lost them all last year at this same tournament and then by the final tournament they won. So, we'll see what happens this year.

There are 2 good things happening here -- she is learning how to play basketball and work as a team and be in a position where she is out of her element, but also and even more importantly, she is becoming better friends with some of the girls on the team and finding "her tribe" at school.




Here is a clip when she was playing in the 1st game. She asked me to take a couple videos to send her teacher , so the 1st clip wasn't when she was playing. So, no need to show it here.

Promoted to Yellow Stripe

These are all pictures from class when she was promoted. They don't get their new belts until they go to their next class. She is now really busy with basketball as you will read about very soon and also has swim so Taekwondo is going to go on the back burner for a while and her brother may belt test one ahead of her and she knows that and is okay with that.

TKD White Belt Testing -- Now a Yellow Stripe!

Both Kids are doing their Chonji form for White Belt, this is the 1st belt. The testing was WAYYYYYY more intensive than just this. We had no idea what they were going to have to all do, but they were prepared and both passed and earned their yellow stripe. They were promoted at the next class.

Fall Band Concert

Monday was the fall band concert for 6 through 12 grades. Now that she is in 6th grade, things are arranged a little differently. In sixth grade they have to choose a music, either band or choir that they have every other day. Band is always Monday Wednesday Friday then on the opposite days they can choose the other music class, art class, or study hall. Isabel chose band and art.

So grades 6 through 12 have their own fall concert which K through five do not. They separate the concert with having choir doing their own concert then band doing their own concert.

Although on the video they have both concerts together. You can forward ahead to the 30-minute mark. They will perform three songs.

Tomorrow, she will be going to a master's class 4 middle schoolers. Her band instructor picked her to go along with two other girls that are in 7th or 8th grade. She is the only sixth grader who was picked to go to this master's class. She will get to study and practice with a professional musician on the French horn.

Basketball ?!?!?!

She is really doing it........she said she wanted to do basketball this year and we signed her up. This is her very first practice. I dropped her off at basketball open gym the last 3 Sundays, but practice starts now. First tournament is on Nov. 18th.

Oh, she is still swimming but only 2 times a week. Then basketball is two or three practices a week. Basketball will be wrapped up before the championship swim meet season starts which is a good thing and none of her swim meets interfere with basketball tournaments which is another good thing. Taekwondo on the other hand will be taking a backseat after she does next weekend's belt testing. She wants to get her first belt before she takes a break from it and then we'll start up again when basketball is done.