Karate Party!!

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Tessa

We held Lex’s friend party this year at their karate dojo. The sempis (teachers) did a wonderful job and the kids had a blast!! The karate studio provides the space, and the table set-up, and I brought the rest.

Happy Birthday Lex!!

The cake. Lex wanted a yellow belt on the cake because he has a yellow belt, and the purple patch is similar to the patch on their uniforms.

The kids started by finding their ninja names (using the letters from their actual names or initials). Some kids had more fun with this than others. Some, I think, thought it was too much work for a birthday party! :)

Like my birthday banner?

The dojo also had a birthday banner!

Goody “bags” (wrapped books, with a cookie attached), cake, and presents in the back row. Fortune cookies, strawberries, gi cookies, Goldfish mix, and carrots in the front row.

The party favors this year were books. My friend suggested it and I thought it was very appropriate considering the birthday boy and our family. I found two different easy-reader chapter books, both with karate themes, and bought six of each. I taped on a karate gi sugar cookie and wrapped it all up with a “black belt” ribbon. I hope the kids like them. In my opinion it’s better than cheap junk they just throw away anyway.

Some “human bowling” aka Rolling Bombs.

Once the kids all arrived they went into the main dojo for lots of high energy games led by the sempis.

The kids all love this game. If you get hit you have to go to the side and do push-ups or jumping jacks.

Then some actual karate! They started with punches.

Power punches!

Then kicks.

Then flying side kicks! For this they have to run down the blue mat then jump up and kick the pad that the sempi is holding. They were encourage to make loud kung-fu Hollywood style noise while running and jumping. Everyone loved this one!

After awhile of karate and games, the kids came into the small dojo for snacks, presents, and cake.

The dojo provided free floating balloons and Alan provided the snack time entertainment.

He is quite entertaining.

It was a very fun atmosphere. :)

Present time. Lots of Legos and books! :)

Right here he’s opening karate nunchuck pens. Super fun! His classmates will have to watch out now!

One of the kids gave him stick-on mustaches and everyone had fun with them! One kid said the mustache on Alan made him look more manly. :)

The whole crowd, some with stick-on mustaches, others with balloon mustaches, and everyone full of silliness!

One happy boy!! (The karate gi cookies with black belts left everyone with black tinted lips and teeth. Not the most attractive look!)

In a throwback to the sawzal party, Alan decided to cut the cake today with a samari sword! Everyone had a good laugh. Then boring mommy kicked him out and used just a plain old knife to do the job.

I cut very large pieces. One kid asked what kind it was, referring to brand name, I believe, and commented that the cake is much more dense than usual. I had to explain the whole “made from scratch” thing. :)

When they were done with cake they went right back to the big dojo for more fun! Time to burn off the cake energy!

Time for some dodge ball, dojo style!

They finished with an “everyone throw the ball at the birthday boy” game. Like the dojo version of birthday spankings. Lex laughed and laughed.

After two hours everyone was hot and sweaty, and full of sugar and fun! It was a great day! We sent each kid home with a little present and a handful of fortune cookies.

Happy almost birthday Lex!

Ninja girl breaks a board

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Tessa

Today they had a “bring a buddy” event at karate. If you brought a buddy, you got to break a board at the end of class. Eve was pretty excited. She asked one of her friends to go and he was happy to give karate a try. At the end of class, she punched through a board! Afterwards one of the girls in the changing room commented on how Eve did a good job breaking the board. Eve told her it was easy, then the girl said it was easy if you have fists like Eve! She told Eve her fist went so fast it looked like a blur. I think that made Eve pretty proud. :)

Lex missed the event because he has volunteered to be on the stage crew for the 4th/5th play this week. He has two hours of practice every day after school. He’s pretty excited.

Belt testing again

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Tessa

The kids had another belt test today. They weren’t as excited this time, for some reason, but they pulled it together and earned a yellow belt with a white stripe, which is exactly what they were expecting.

I’m impressed with how strong and stable Lex has become. Watch his kicking here. He used to barely lift his leg and basically fall into it, but now he has much better balance and strength.

Karate kids

Karate – Pinan Nidan

Ninja time!

Posted on August 21, 2014 by Tessa

The kids had their second belt test tonight. They both did AWESOME! I was really impressed with how focused and strong they were, especially since they have been quite silly at lessons lately. They pulled through with flying colors. Orange colors. :)

Chillin’ with Aunt Rosy before the belt test begins.

They were so strong and focused.

The sensi told Lex that he was really focused and did a great job on his moves.

Then he asked Eve how it is possible that she did so well on her karate, focused and strong, and also managed to make every sempi (teacher) at the table smile. There’s something about that girl!

They are so proud and excited to start learning new moves – orange belt moves!

We celebrated the achievements with take-out pizza and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the original 1990 version. We figured karate and pizza called for TMNT!

The other excitement for today is that Rosy came to visit! And she brought with her a tent!

There were two very happy children in the kitchen this afternoon. And a tent.

They are “sleeping” in the tent tonight, in the office.

This was a mistake picture but it looks pretty cool.

“Sleeping” seems to involve lots of flashlight action. :)

The grownups in the house have odds on whether or not they will make it. The kids are pretty determined though. They say it’s their practice run and they want to sleep outside in the yard tomorrow. We’ll see about that. It’s pouring rain tonight. Maybe it will rain tomorrow too. :)

Update: By 11:30pm, with the help of me laying down with them for awhile, they are both asleep, in their tent, in the office. We are all going to be tired tomorrow, but that how it goes with camping!

Sciency fun

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Tessa

We are trying to cram as much fun into these last two weeks as possible. Balanced, of course, with as much “no plans” time as possible too. It makes for tricky scheduling!

Yesterday we had to get out of the house and I was feeling a bit cranky, so I suggested we start our day with a trip to King Arthur Flour. No objections from the kids! They were even happier when I let them get anything they wanted. Eve asked if she could have a cupcake (at 9am) and they were huge and beautiful and I said sure. She decided on a whoopie pie instead, while Lex and I both got blueberry scones.

After the kids ran around like wild ones for a few minutes we headed up the street to the science museum. The place was packed, but we all had fun.

Eve brought her notebook to make some sketches.

A T-Rex named Sue.

A “What’s hot? What’s not?” selfie.

Lex took Jupiter for a spin.

We went to a Discovery Lab session on volcanic rocks. The lady kept talking about “frozen lava” and it drove me crazy. My kids knew more about the rocks than she did. I think she was new. She clearly had some learning to do. :) Lex left part way through, but Eve stayed for the whole thing. She showed them basalt, pumice, granite, and obsidian. Eve did some sketching. :)

Lex spent most of his time in the Tinkering Lab. The project was to make parts for a pinball machine. They had a bunch of homemade pinball machines set up (six, maybe) and lots of supplies for the kids to make their own components to add. Then the kids could put them in and test them out. It was lots of fun.

Here is one of the machines with Lex’s additions (the red and green parts).

Eve made an intricate decoration with a red flag on top for the pinball machine.

Lex made a ramp and landing zone.

While Lex continued tinkering, Eve and I went to the top so she could do another sketch. She propped her clipboard on the railing and it almost fell off! Well, it did fall off, but on the inside, not the outside. This is her face when describing what could have happened!

She decided to be safe and hold the clipboard in her arm while sketching. I thought that was a much better idea.

Everyone was having fun but we had to head home for their final piano lesson of the summer. Then a little rest, a little dinner, and off to karate where they got belt test invitations! The belt test is next week and they are very excited, and ready!

Oh, what a day!

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Tessa

I have had a very, very busy week! It’s my second solo week in kindergarten, though the first one I’ve actually had all five days. Tuesday night my friend from UVEI called to tell me what I’d missed that day, which apparently was a bump up on the due dates for a few big projects due. I know what’s due, but apparently it’s due two weeks sooner than I anticipated! On Wednesday morning I scheduled an interview for next Monday (yay!) which I’m not even remotely prepared for yet. But I’m trying to keep my eye on this week. This solo week. Which has had plenty of ups and downs, of course, and I’m pretty sure I’m learning more than the kiddos this week.

My school day ended on a high. As a UVEI project I wrote a kindergarten unit on neighborhoods and I’ve been teaching it this week. It culminated with the class building a neighborhood in the classroom out of paper, cardboard, wooden blocks, Legos, and more. They loved it!! We gave the other kindergarten a tour, a few teachers, and the principal even stopped by to visit our neighborhood. The kids were so excited!

After school Lex and Eve had their first belt test! They were super excited and I found myself feeling very nervous for them. Eve gets silly when she’s nervous and Lex tends to cry, so I wasn’t sure at all what to expect from the afternoon. Turns out they are both rockstars and did awesome! They needed to ace three separate tasks to move up a full belt color, or there are stripe levels to move up partial belt colors. They had the option of doing the third task or not, but if they did it it had to be done solo, not with the group. Both of them chose to do it! I was so surprised and proud of them! They ended up moving from white to orange with a white stripe, which is one step below orange. The Sensi was proud of both of them for trying the third tasks and they did well with it, but not perfectly. However, they were THRILLED about their orange/white stripe belts. Absolutely thrilled! Eve said her heart was bursting with joy and she swore she had happy tears inside too. :) I did too!!

This video is nearly nine minutes long, but I suspect there are one or two of you out there who might be interested.

Karate

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Tessa

The kids took a special Foam Weapons Sparring class last weekend. They had a blast. Alan took them and I made him swear he’d take a few pictures for me. :) He did. His phone also makes cool videos automatically from the pictures, so here are a few pics and a video montage his phone made. Apparently they learned about the weapons and how to use them, then play “Ninja versus Samurai” where the samurais had to defend the castle (blue foam mats) and the ninjas had to attack and try to sneak in (space between the mats). They had a blast. I kind of wish I was there, but instead I was home doing homework. That was good too… in a different way.

Brave Ninjas

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Tessa

I am so proud of these two tonight! They were so excited to go to their first karate lesson today. The timing worked out such that we went to a 6pm class, which we won’t do often because that’s just too late for this family. However, they were amazing! Lex got a little nervous before we left and started saying he didn’t want to go, but we chatted and he remembered that he loved it on Monday, so he decided to try it again tonight. When we got there they changed and walked right out on the floor with the rest of the group. There were so many kids, yet Lex and Eve did wonderfully

The teachers were patient and kind. The kids made mistakes, got a little lost, laughed and loved it!

Karate

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Tessa

In an effort to get the kids more physically active this winter I signed them up for a karate introduction lesson. They both know several kids who do karate and Lex even went to a karate birthday party a few weeks ago. They were excited right up until the moment we walked in the door, then seeing all the people dressed alike and performing in unison (as much as a bunch of kids ever do), both kids shut down. They said they did not want to do it and they wanted to leave right away. I reminded them that we had made an appointment and we need to at least stay for the introduction lesson, then we could go. They grudgingly agreed and boy are they glad they did! The lesson was just the two of them and a teacher (sensi, I think, I need to study up on my karate lingo!) and they LOVED it. They were blocking and kicking and laughing. At the end they both eagerly asked if they could take lessons. So we signed them up. Uniform and all! We are encouraged to go three times a week, but I can’t see that happening in our world. We’re shooting for twice a week for starters. :)

Introduction lesson

All suited up.

Ready to go!

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Calm and Chaos: Life with kids

Tag Archives: Karate

Karate Party!!

Ninja girl breaks a board

Belt testing again

Ninja time!

Sciency fun

Oh, what a day!

Karate

Brave Ninjas

Karate