Our First Meeting

The girls had a great first meeting.  We started with introductions and then moved right into defining our team rules.  The girls were filled with great rule ideas...they came up with all of these! 

After deciding on our rules we voted on a team name, and came up with the "Dashing Dolphins."  We look forward to having a lot of fun with the dolphins over the next 6 weeks. 

Next we introduced the story of Siren vs. Mermaidia.  We all have thoughts and beliefs about ourselves that are powerful influences in how we feel, what we believe we are worth, and what we believe we are capable of doing and being.  Siren tells us that we must act/look/be a certain way to be accepted - her voice is loud and sounds beautiful and alluring - it can be heard through TV, magazines, girls we look up to who are older or more popular, and even from people in our families.  But she is up to no good and her words are full of tricks that will only hurt us in the end.  Mermaidia has the tools to help us expose Siren's lies and help us navigate around the rocky cliffs - knowing we are each uniquely valuable and capable of reaching our goals.  Ask your girls to share some examples of what Siren or Mermaidia would say...they caught on very quickly.

After learning the Mermaidia story, it was time to get moving.  The girls started with a warm-up jog around the field, and then did some stretches with Coach Karin.

After our basic stretches we learned the "inch worm" stretch.  This is a tricky one for the girls, we will continue to work on it each meeting.

The girls took off again to run two more laps.  We had a couple reports of side aches and tired feet, but overall the girls did great for their first day out running.  We finished with a slow walking lap all together.

I'm sorry I didn't catch you running, Samantha, I'll catch you next time!

After our run we played the Siren vs. Mermaidia game.  The coaches called out statements and the girls ran to either Siren or Mermaidia, depending on who was likely to say such a thing.  This came was a piece of cake for the girls, they are onto Siren and her evil tricks!  Thanks to our parent helpers for filling in as Siren and Mermaidia.

We ended our day with a little bit of journal work.  The girls will be working in their journal during the entire season.  We will keep them until the end, then they will get to take them home with them.  Today they wrote a little bit about themselves, what they like, what they're good at, and then drew a picture of themselves how they view themselves today. 

We ended our first meeting with a yummy Cliff Kids bar, thanks to the Cliff bar company donation.  We hope to keep collecting donations to provide snacks throughout the season, so the girls should just have to bring their water bottles. 

Thanks everyone for coming out on your New Years holiday...we'll see you again Wednesday!