Kanga+Cricket

// Community Service - Kanga Cricket // - Home For my Community Service I have decided that I would like to help the Tallangata Community have better skills at Cricket and more specifically Kanga Cricket. I was lucky in this project because some of my close friends had the same or similar ideas, so we decided to do our project as a group. We chose to teach at Saint Michael's Primary School because it had a smaller amount of students which would be easier to teach effectively and also there were already enough people doing projects at Tallangata PS.

1st week - The first week I was very unorganised and didn't expect to go on this particular day, but we worked around it and made our way to the PS after lunch on the Friday. I was a little nervous going into a school I had never been to before but soon settled in okay. After we worked out how much time we had and how many we were teaching our group set up for the activities we were going to be doing. The kids came out (very energetic) and did as we told them and played to the rules we set. I think they had lots of fun and enjoyed learning the skills we taught them. Im looking forward to next week and seeing the kids again. I would say a very successful first week.

2nd week - This week we were much more organised and had activities ready to go. This helped a lot because there were no periods when we were thinking of the next activity and the kids were doing nothing. This time I knew what to expect from the kids and the school so I was a lot more comfortable. I think we had more control over the kids this week, partly because we split them into 2 groups and we were a bit tougher on them. Over all a good week.

3rd week - __Sick__

4th week - This week we introduced batting to the kids. We did this through simple underarm bowling to the battsman. At first this diddn't work at all because naturally the kids went the smash, but we demonstrated the strait bat shot (drive or block) to them. This eventually worked and the kids were much more confident batting. We then had a small game that exercised this skill, we could telll the improvement from the first lesson we taught easily.

5th week - This week we were more organied and lended the camera from the library. At the start of the lesson I made an intraduction and demonstrated what we were going to teach them this lesson. It was bowling, we broke this skill down to parts so the kids learnt it easier. The first step was a standing start and a strait arm directly over their head, then rock back on one foot and do the same, then a 3 step run up. I found this very effective and would use this method again if Ihad the chance.

6th week - Our sixth week was here and as a group we decided that it would be our last. This was due to the limited time we had left and the fact that the primary school had cancelled three weeks because of sports training and days. Because we had promised the kids so many times before, we were going to have a full game with 2 innings each. The lesson went very smoothly and the kids and ourselves enjoyed it. After the game (which was very close) we got a group photo of us 4 with all the kids in the class that we had taught over the past 6 weeks.

Although this project ended well, it was hard to start off and frustrating when I had to run the lessons and speak to the teachers. These problems eventually sorted themselves out and the sessions went smoother and quicker. If I was to do this project again, I would have chosen a sport I know more about so I would be able to teach the kids the proper skills. I would have either chosen a more productive group or followed our agreed group co-operation plan. Bought lollies on the last lesson.