"eScopala Leonardo!!!"

Yesterday was a lot of fun. We were able to use the gym, so the PE teacher told me he could take us and play some games there with the kids. Last time we were there I told him we should play a "kicking the ball" game, so he suggested we play Football. (I hadn't suggested football because I didn't think all would understand the game, so I thought we should just do a simple game which involves kicking a ball) We didn't have a lot of kids because some are away on vacation, but we were able to make two teams. In one team we had a Dutch/British 4 year old, an Italian 4 year old, a Nigerian 4 year old, and a Polish 2.5 year old girl. Two of the older kids have special needs. The other team had a Dutch/British 4 year old (twins), a Spanish 3 year old, a Spanish/German 2.5 year old, and a Spanish/Dutch 3 year old girl. So, one girl in each team. Now... I love Football and as soon as I saw the teams I started to get into the World Cup spirit. Germany, Spain, Italy, England and Holland are all good teams. I'm not sure about Nigeria, but African football is strong as well. No South American countries were represented, but hey, I'm Colombian... so it's ok. (even if Colombia is not going to the World Cup) The game starts. Now, these little 2.5 year-olds didn't get the game, and whenever I pointed to where they had to kick, they thought I meant that they had to stand over there and would leave the ball behind. The Polish girl sort of gave up half way through when she saw the boys were a bit too rough. One of our goalies quit as soon as the other team scored their first (and only) goal. We replaced the goalie and the new one miraculously stopped the ball by just standing there. The ball would hit him and bounce off. Then he got tired of standing so he started to play with the orange cones we had put up. The autistic boy just followed the ball and kicked it all over the place even scoring reversive goals if that makes sense. The other girl kept running up to me so I would pick her up and smile at her, then she would skip around unaware of what was going on. The 2.5 year old boy thought he had to pick up the ball whenever it was near him and throw it to one of the teachers. Add to all this language problems. You have to throw in Spanish, Dutch, English, Italian, and an occational "Tak" for the Polish girl. I ended up screaming things like "eScopala Leonardo!" Which is Spanutch or Dutnish in this case for "Kick it Leonardo!". Was it a disaster? Yes, but it was a lot of fun. And, as in every team we had a star. My little Nigerian boy was amazing. He was one of the goalies at one point and he knew to stay in his place, he would catch the ball whenever it was near him, and would even dive in to stop it. When he had it, he would kick it as far away as possible in the opposite direction. A real star. Then once we were back in class, after we had lunch they were all tired so I read them a story; "Peter and the Wolf" with music and all. Then we played musical chairs. This time I played some samba (can't leave Brazil our of the World Cup) for the game and after the game they said they wanted to dance some more, so I gave them maracas and tambourines and we danced some more. I don't really want to post pictures of my kids, but I hope you can imagine how much fun and colourful our days can be.