Cricket Coaching

On Thursday 20 October Dion came from the Otago Cricket Association to teach us some cricket skills. First we warmed up by playing a game of ball tag. After that we did some catching practice. We had to be careful when catching the tennis ball to make sure we followed the ball with our eyes right into our hands. We practised with a partner and by throwing the ball up in the air and clapping while it was coming down. It taught us the importance of getting our hands in the right position and keeping our eyes on the ball. The next skill we practised was bowling. We learnt the correct technique and the importance of keeping our bowling arm straight. Dion explained that our front arm was like a pulling a chain except that we were actually pulling our bowling arm into position to bowl the ball. We spent a lot of time practising bowling at sets of wickets. It was fun and we will try to apply these skills the next time we play cricket.

Golf

When the sports activator last visited we had a session learning about the basic skills of golf. First we had to learn how to pick up the club and hold it correctly. We learnt about the importance of keeping our heads down and keeping our eyes on the ball. We started out using quite a large ball which was easy to hit but didn’t go very far. Next we moved onto the tennis ball which was a bit harder to hit but went much further and finally we got to use a soft golf ball. Some children had trouble hitting this small sized ball off the tee but others were able to hit it quite a long way. We enjoyed our first experience of playing golf.