organizing children

My 9-year old nephew plays baseball. Watching him play sports is one of the huge joys and anxiety producers of my life. There is something to say about coaches. They can get a kid to do just about anything. (I learned the other day that that is partly because coaches just make you run at the end of practice if you haven't listened to them.)  Moms...try the running thing.

Anyway...this was hanging in the dugout the other day and I LOVED it.

The board is magnetized and those name plates just get moved around by the coaches. It tells the kids what position they play in the field for the upcoming inning, as well as lists their batting order. They have had a bunch of games this year and  yet I had never noticed this ingenious creation. It had always puzzled me as to why the boys hadn't been bombarding the coaches with questions. Everyone just seemed to know the deal, instinctively. Why I thought a bunch of 8-9 year old boys had good instincts was beyond me, but there was no other explanation, so I just went with it.

Nope. It was the magnetic board all along. Someone needed to hook the Little Rascals up with a  magnetic board and there would have been a lot less explosions.