RAAA Basketball Kindergarten Program

• Coaches are role models. This is an introduction to basketball, fundamentals are key and here are some things to remember:

1. Be Patient-Encourage efforts and compliment success2. Be Positive-Don’t focus on the negative, focus on the ways to help the kids learn the

skills3. Be Prepared-The attention spans are short for this age, so come with a practice plan with

different drills and games to keep the interest4. Triple D- When teaching a new skill: Describe it, Demonstrate it and Do it!5. Keep at a fast pace, 1 minute breaks and transition quick from drill to drill to cut back

on kids being bored or getting antsy.5 minutes on a drill and rotate to something new• These are some things to work on during the basketball season

1. Dribbling and Ball handling- Being able to dribble with both hands, knowing how to protect the dribble, eyes should be up at all times and the rules of traveling and double dribble should be taught and emphasized.

2 Jump stop and Pivot without traveling-Athletic stance(feet shoulder width apart), 1 foot on the ground at all times.

3. Passing-Chest, bounce and the overhead pass.Get them in the habit of saying players name who they are passing to, step toward that player, follow thru and have hands readyto catch or shoot.

4. Defensive stance- Make sure have the correct posture, athletic stance and emphasize shuffle their feet(heels should not touch each other), hands mirror the ball if guarding ball and if off the ball in the passing lane..Anticipate.

5. Shooting- BEEF…Balance, Elbow in, Eyes on the Basket, Follow thru..Make sure inathletic stance, elbow in(Arm should form an L in front of the body, ball on the pads of the fingers not on the palm, Balance the ball in shooting hand and place guide hand to the side of the ball, Use legs for power , Follow thru towards Target(Wave goodbye to the basketball)Shooting progressionA.Line all players up against a the wall and make each kid pick a cinder block. See how many times they can hit the cinder block in 30 seconds using proper form. Emphasize the use of their legs. Have them shoot higher and higher to build arm strengthB.Once players understand proper form, move them to the basket. Start close to the basket and explain to them how the backboard can be used to increase their probability of making the shot.C.Lightening is a fun game the whole team can play. Have players line up in front of free throw line. 2 basketballs. The first shooter shoots and then 2nd one tries to kncked them out by making a basket ..this continues till 1 player left .D.5 hits is another game. Split team into 2 teams. Put as many basketballs as players athalf court. Line one team on one end line and the other team on the other end line. On the whistle the players run to pick up a basketball and then dribble to the basket they came from and start shooting, the first team to 5 is done. As they get the form down can increase the numbers. This is great as getting conditioning in, dribbling , jump stops and all kids participating

7. Lay-ups-Jump off inside leg, shoot with outside arm and use the backboard.A. As in the shooting drill, take the kids to the wall again and find a cinder block. Usingthe proper form of a lay-up see how many times can hit it in 30 seconds. Practice with both hands.B.Once they understand proper form, move them to the basket. Start close to the basket, so they do not have to dribble, focus just on jumping off inside leg, shooting with outside arm and using the backboard. See how many can make in a row.C.Once they make baskets consistently, move them back and add the dribble. They will

struggle with the timing aspect of jumping off inside leg—practice makes perfect. Makesure to teach left and right handed and check that they are using correct hand on each side.

Drills and Lead-up Games• Dribbling

1.Ball-Handling-Figure 8's,around legs and body, Ball slaps2.Dribble around cones-Set up cones in a straight line and players have to dribble in and out of the cones, switching hands.3.Dribble the court-Down left, back right. Head up4.”Coach Says”-Like Simon Says, listen and Pay attention for players. Can use dribble, no dribble, shoot in the air.5.Follow the leader around the court-Dribble with left/right,crossover,dribble shuffle6.Sharks and minnows-One player is the Shark and the rest are Minnows . The minnows try to dribble to the other side and the shark tries to steal the ball.7.Red,Yellow, Green,Purple Light -Each player has a ball and dribbles around the court keeping head up. The coach yells out commands.. Red-Stop,dribble in place. Green -Go,move quickly around the court .Yellow-Slow down,player moves slowly. Purple-Stop dribbling, place the ball on the ground and the players run around theball.8.Knockout-Stay within a specified space and keep your dribble while trying to take other bball away. If get knocked out, 10 dribbles to get back in9.Head up dribbling-Head up while dribbling,coach does signals 1-dribble right hand, 2-dribble left hand,point to right-dribble to right, point to left-dribble to left ,point forward-come forward , point back-dribble backwards.

• Passing 1.Partner passing-chest,bounce,overhead.10 passes for each pass to partner.2.Three player drill- Child in middle must catch the pass from wing , pivot on 1 foot and pass to other wing.3.Monkey in the middle-2 players 15ft apart with 1 player in the middle. The middle person attempts to de flect or intercept a chest pass from the other players. If middle touches that player switches spot with the player who threw the pass 4.Shuffle Pass Relay-Partner up and players face each other and shuf fle up and down the court throwing chest pass , stay in athletic stance.5.Hit the object -Put a piece a paper in between 2 players and they have to hit it on a bounce pass.

• Defense1.Foot fire drill- Players spread out facing the coach. On command get in defensive stance, coach says “Foot fire” and they patter feet and then on command of coach defensive slide direction coach points, go left, right, forward, backward, dive for loose ball. Make defense fun for the kids.2. 1 on 1 dribble and slide. 1 player zig-zag dribble up and down the court while defense shuffles in zig-zag, hands up, athletic stance. Once get to one end, change offense to defense.3.Deny the pass drill- Two coaches are on offense. One coach is the passer and one coach is the receiver. Each child takes a turn at covering the receiving coach and trying to deny or steal the ball as it is passed. Tell player to have hand up in passing lane and head is on a swivel seeing ball and player.

• Lead up games1. One minute free for all-Put 1 team at each basket. Every player has a ball. Teams have 1 minute to shoot from anywhere on their area of the court to see how many baskets their team can make combined.All players shoot at the same time and chase down their own rebounds. Every time a player scores, he counts the new team total out loud. The winner is the team that makes the most baskets in a minute.

2.Sideline bball-Divide the team into two even groups and have two teams line up on opposing sidelines. Give very player on each team a number. Place the ball at half court and call out a number , for example, “Player 3 number 3, Player 3 from each side will sprint out to get the ball . The player that picks the ball up first is the offensive player and the other player assumes the defensive role. The offensive player tries to score and can use teammates on the sidelines for passing only. The sideline teammates cannot move once they received the ball, but they can move up and down the sideline without the ball to get open for a pass. If the defensive player steals the ball or gets a rebound he must check the ball by passing it out to one of his teammates before he can attempt to score. After one of the players scores or both have at least has an offensive attempt, they are to return to the sideline. The ball is again placed at half court and another number is called. Mix this up by calling out multiple numbers so players can play 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 and so on.

3.Relay races- Use cones, hoops and do relays using the basic skills of dribbling and passing.

4.Basketball tag- Each player has a ball and has to keep dribbling as they try and tag others. Works on control dribble and keeping eyes up. Try to watch for traveling and double dribble.

5.Superman toss- Work on rebounding, have kids toss the ball in the air 10 times and try to jump as high as they can to grab it out of the air.