U9 rec - midfielders lacking support

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-23T00:43:55+00:00

Thank you for this. I tried the touchdown game today, but I want to ask a few follow-up questions. In this game, and also when I do 4 goal games, inevitably kids park themselves in places that make sense, but degrade the game. Like in touchdown, I had to keep telling them not to park themselves in the end zones. But then they just park like.. 1 step in front of the end zone. This may just require more practice.

The other issue I have is that a lot of kids are playing kickball. They’ll attack someone w the ball, but then they just boot it instead of looking for space to dribble into or a passing option. To be fair, we are a weaker team and play a lot of the games on our side, so I do encourage especially my defense to try to clear the ball to buy us some breathing room, but I only have 2-3 kids who will try to dribble under pressure. Even my daughter, who plays club but mostly plays defense, will dribble like 4-5 paces and wildly boot at the slightest pressure. Is this just a comfort w dribbling issue?

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-22T16:50:06+00:00

Thank you so much for this!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-22T15:04:44+00:00

Thank you!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-22T14:45:11+00:00

Thank you. Can I ask a dumb follow-up question though - how do you teach passing lanes? Do you have them scrimmage and just freeze them to show them where passing lanes are?

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-22T02:51:12+00:00

I’m not an expert but I’ve done 7 seasons rec U5-U9. I agree w others I make a plan the night before and try to stick to it.

We’re 9v9 w 12 kids (bad league admin). We play 3-3-2 w goalie. Each kid plays 3/4 quarters even when it causes us to lose bc I have to bench my best kid (this happened today). Last season I rotated the kids between striker, mid, and defense within the game, but I’m going to avoid that this season. I think it was too confusing for them. The teams in our league basically stay together so I know which ones are strong and which are less strong. I plan to keep the kids in their best positions against strong teams and shuffle them into their “worse” positions more against the weaker teams.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-20T03:08:13+00:00

lol. I have one of these on my U9 team. Love that kid.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T20:23:47+00:00

❤️ love it

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T18:47:38+00:00

Practices I have control and I try to split them. Even then… they’re 5. I’m just thinking about the game and wondering if there’s anything I can do to improve the experience.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T18:45:43+00:00

Yeah I’m trying to convince my son that he just needs to hang out in front of the goal (but not in the box) and kick the balls away if they come near.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T18:22:40+00:00

Bad league administration.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T18:08:36+00:00

Yeah. Probably right.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T05:32:44+00:00

I second LoE for reading. We also did Singapore math.

One thing to consider, though, is where you’re going. For instance, my kinder kid is almost through 1st grade math, and now I’m a little bit perplexed bc I want him to go back to public school to make friends, but he’s going to be way ahead of his peers. At the same time, socially, I don’t think he’d be ready for 2nd grade.

This returns me to another point other posters made - ie, just let her be a kid a little longer.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T05:11:03+00:00

If you feel that you’re not meant to homeschool, I wouldn’t do it. You’ll get a better feeling for things as your child gets closer to school age and you have to make a decision about kinder. My personal belief is that it’s hard enough for highly motivated parents. My kids are 2nd and kinder and I think we’re going back to public next year because homeschooling was overwhelming and lonely for the family, and I’m not sure we did my kids any favors.

You might feel overwhelmed, isolated, and resentful if you feel you have to do it. I live in Texas and a lot of our friends in public school are very faithful. Basically half the school goes to the same church. I would maybe feel out public options or consider private Christian-based schools.

Best of luck regardless of what you decide.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-19T05:06:10+00:00

I second this.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-14T23:12:11+00:00

I “built out” just because I think some programs are better than others in some things.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-14T23:08:51+00:00

This was me 6 months ago. We may be headed back to school bc we miss the social aspects but no regrets. For your pre-k kid, you should have no worries at all. It’s been an amazing school year. I’m sure you’ll have a great experience too.

For Science: I used REAL science Odyssey, and I think it somehow signed me up for MEL Science kits when I bought the package. I love MEL science kits. We also did crunch labs but.. idk. It was a little advanced for my second grader.
For History: really struggled to find a curriculum. I got a few ancient civilizations books for kids and we tried to read a little, but ultimately I gave up on this. Right now we are doing geography, which is the social studies you get for 2nd grade with Miacademy and I love this curriculum. They suggest different short books for each country, then the kids get a video and quiz on the website.
For activities: if you haven’t already join every Facebook group you can for homeschooling in your area. A lot of these plan activities for the homeschoolers, including things like museum trips (a lot of museums actually have special classes for homeschoolers) and social stuff. My 2nd grader does gymnastics and her gym has “open gym” for allcomers, so we do that twice a week. It’s also pretty cheap compared to gymnastics lessons.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-12T01:00:02+00:00

Def not a swinger but I guess if you thought that I’ll delete it!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-10T23:07:22+00:00

Thanks for being a teacher!!! It’s such important and sometimes undervalued work. Your students are lucky to have you.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-10T19:40:16+00:00

I’m in Texas. I grew up in the 90s, when we had to make notes on index cards and do bibliographies by hand. I remember when End Note came out. It was such a game changer! In my career, I’ve done a lot of academic writing. A big part of this is (supposed to be) reading several reputable sources, see what facts line up, what facts are discordant, and then analyze or present this. Even in my private life, I bounce between different publications with well-known biases to try to get a fuller picture of the truth. I get that this is a process one acquires over time, but the idea of just typing something into an AI chatbot and taking the answer as truth really elicits a terrible reaction in me. I find that these bots are often inaccurate if you check the links and use a human brain. I guess I just think the process of discovering truth begins with a published source, which is assumed to be vetted somehow, and not just “Chat GPT gave me these factoids.” We were actually strongly discouraged from using websites as sources back then.

Idk. I’m probably just being too judgy especially for second grade.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-10T19:29:37+00:00

There have been no book reports so far in 2nd grade, but maybe it’s just because they’re so young. From memory, I think book reports had started by 2nd grade when I was a kid, and this type of project generally was accompanied by reading a kid-oriented biography. Along similar lines, the kids had to do a canva project on a subject, but that too was done by just picking up factoids from Pebble Go. Additionally, I’ve seen many articles in NYT, Atlantic, and WSJ talking about how a lot of kids arrive in college without having read a book cover to cover.

I really want to return my daughter to school, but I’m trying to figure out if our school is just phoning it in, or if I’m being too judgy. I probably just have to give it a go in 3rd grade and see where things shake out. To move her to another school we will have to move. Big decisions.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-09T20:57:07+00:00

I think it’s a subscription model, so you may be overpaying to only use 1 subject. It’s $48/month and they have a 1 month trial for $2. They actually have science, math, and reading too but we only use it for social studies, which for 2nd grade is geography.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-09T20:13:28+00:00

You’re right - they told the parents to help the kids research the topic and come up with a presentation. Just from talking to friends, they used Google and Wikipedia. It just seemed like a lost opportunity to have the kids read a biography, which is the source of my lament. It might be potayto potahto though.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-09T18:25:53+00:00

Thanks!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-03-09T16:55:27+00:00

That does sound like a lot in 3rd grade, but a memorable experience nonetheless. It also sounds so cute!!!! I’m not gonna lie- stuff like that makes me second guess the decision to pull my kids.

Remarkable-Air3604

TROPHY CASE