Physical Education

In my school days back in Denmark it felt like all the PE-classes consisted of some kind of team ball game mostly handball and soccer. The first thing I did after covid was enroll Mathilde in a ball-game class which, it turned out, consisted only of boys and Mathilde. She did have a blast, and it was so cute to watch the little kids play soccer, football, baseball, and so many other sports.

Mathilde then really wanted to try basketball, and I promptly enrolled her — at this point she had never even held a basketball, and it turned out she was the youngest and there was only one other girl out of 24 boys. However, this turned out to be an amazing experience— the teen and pre-teen boys were so kind and taught Mathilde so much both about team-spirit but also helped her become much better at basketball and gross motor skills in general. She has been in so many classes — she loved gymnastic, ballet, swim classes, different types of Martial arts, and so many different dance classes.

My educational background in Denmark is Physical Therapy and I have always focused on developing both her fine- and gross motor skills. I incorporate movement throughout the day — we dance, do yoga, take a walk, or simply gets up and jump on the couch.

Personally, I wasn’t very fond of PE classes, however, I love sports. I have danced, done martial arts, I used to swim, done yoga and Pilates — it turned out I loved solo sports where I can just be myself and not team sports — there were always too much going on for me on the field and I am not very fond of balls. I am trying to give both girls the chance to try different sports and feel what they like and explore their own strengths and weaknesses physically.

The theory and skills for different sports I let her teachers and coaches teach her, while I teach her physiology and healthy habits through unit studies and our daily life and cooking together.