My 2.7 year old son attended Soccer Shots at our company daycare premises, which has really great onsite outdoor facilities for all kinds of activities, including hosting Soccer Shots. Our Soccer Shots coach was great.
However For 2-3 year olds the Soccer Shots program is a real hit and miss. Forget the official reports that are written and sent to you - these are always very positive, children learned this and that and played this and that. If you're just reading the reports - you really have no idea how well your child engaged. He / she could easily have been standing around doing absolutely nothing the entire duration (just saying, I've seen that, although it was not my child at the time of observation).
The children did not see the Soccer Shots instructor very often (once per week) and frequently did not engage as well as they do with regular teachers they see every day. I have attended 4 sessions (both early and mid way through the season), and my childs engagement with the activities was only at 100% when I was there. This is obviously because I'm a parent (a trusted caregiver in childs eyes). I assume the same positive 100% engagement translates to birthday parties where parents are present? (I'm speculating - no personal experience with bday parties yet).
I have also observed other children over the 4 sessions and the engagement is hit and miss, around 50%. All in all - a good idea on paper, but doesn't quite work out in practice for this age group with an outside instructor.
Another downside pointing in the same direction is that the weekly sessions were incredibly short (30 minutes, including setup and teardown and roll call) - so children do not spend enough time with the instructor. Obviously making the sessions longer could have its own problems (young children are easily bored) or conflict with childs other activities at the center and be more expensive. However I'm by no means a twos pedagogical expert, so perhaps there is a way to extend the sessions slightly (45 min?). Plus if the child is not engaged, a longer session would not be any good - discussion better saved for pedagogical professionals.
In other words Soccer Shots is a good idea on paper, hard to implement in practice for the 2yo age group.
This is of course purely a personal opinion, and no doubt biased by the lack of engagement for my 2.5 yeald old boy. However even other children in the 2-3 year old range who I would consider much more easy-going and more quick to warm up to new people than my child did not engage well at least 50% of the time that I participated and had a chance to observe.
i would say that, on average, my childs experience wasn't very different from just taking a walk outside. He would probably do more if he just did regular outside play with his classmates and teachers.
So why pay extra for an activity that does not achieve more compared to the standard activities already included in your regular day care tuition?
Perhaps the engagement is better in a slightly older children group, when they are more coachable and can be focused more (I'm speculating).
Once again the coach was great, and I don't have any suggestions for improvement. Perhaps there is a way to involve a trusted caregiver (e.g. one of childrens regular teachers), but then this approach is better implemented as an internal day care center activity, and would not need an external Soccer Shots provider.
Once again - you can safely ignore the shiny reports sent by e-mail, and I would recommend observing a couple sessions to decide whether the activity is for your child. You don't need to sign up your own child.
Based on the number of children standing around doing nothing, and children engaged in Soccer Shots play - you can calculate the chance that your child will be engaged. I'd estimate 50% overall for our group, and less than that for my specific child who likes to explore with familiar faces around him, rather than new faces.
I would consider the activity reasonably priced. The problem is not with the price, but that my child would likely do more stuff if he was hanging out with his teachers doing familiar activities.
Finally to recap - this review is for a once-per-week 30 min activity provided by Soccer Shots at our day care center for 3 months (12 sessions) read more
