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Post by wheels1284 on Jul 18, 2014 12:39:55 GMT -6
This is my first year as head coach and we are running a youth camp for the first time ever. I would like to hear some good ideas of things you have done with the kids in the past. We have incoming 4th - 8th graders. The 7th and 8th will have a more structured practice but I want to have more "fun" activities for the younger kids. What are some things you have done that the kids seemed to enjoy?
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Post by freezeoption on Jul 18, 2014 15:31:25 GMT -6
what I have done is put the younger kids in groups and rotate them so they get to try all the skills, oline, qb and running backs, recievers teach them some skills like how to catch and run a certain route, how to hand off to rb, oline I taught stance and starts, then defense same thing teach a group for d line, inside lbers, outside linebackers, corners and safeties, then treat them with popsicles and while they eat talk about some area in football you want to cover, like teamwork, commitment, then done play ultimate football, we use to do a 3 day camp, for 3 hours each day, charged 20 and they'd get a t shirt
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Post by Wingtman on Jul 18, 2014 17:26:57 GMT -6
-How long for the younger guys? With a youth camp, you may be best served running the 1st-3rd/4-6/7-8 apart if possible. Or at least 7-8 different from the others.
The younger kids (1-6th) can learn handoffs, stance, routes. Here's the thing, in my opinion. Dont tell some chubby 3rd grader he cant go run routes and has to play OL. Have 3 stations, break them up in three groups and rotate them, 10 minutes each, then do a defensive station group, 10 minutes each. Couple that with stretching at the front end, and some sort of game on the back end. 90 minute camp.
With your junior high kids, we've always had them go at the same time as high school camp. JR High camp runs 6-8 pm, High School camp 6-9. They ran the same drills as our high school team, and when we went to team time, they did as well. We spent the last hour of High School time "cranking up the volume".
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Post by macdiiddy on Jul 18, 2014 18:26:58 GMT -6
We have a camp for K-2nd graders, 3rd-5th, and 6th-8th. One a week. Its a 2 hour "practice", Mon through Friday. One camp a week. We have players help run drills. If they help out more then half the days any siblings will get in for free and they will get some spirit wear.
The run through stations. One for each skill position. Running the hoops, running over step overs, tackling bags etc. The last 30 minutes of each day they play flag football. Thursday we record times/scores for each position drill and print off certificates for the winner of each position drill in each grade.
On friday we play a flag football tourney. After the tourney we have a presentation of the certificates, everyone gets a camp shirt and then we hand out ribbons for whatever place they got in the tourney.
Separate to that, we will invite the 6-8th graders and their coaches to a week of padded practice in July. They will run our exact practice and we install our stuff. The idea is that they will understand how we practices and hopefully be familiar with some of our verbiage. We also hoped that it would make it easier for the Youth league guys to run our stuff.....but that hasn't happened and wont happen due to politics and who runs that stuff. But year, that is what we do.
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Post by bruinfb on Jul 18, 2014 18:40:38 GMT -6
We've had the young guys run an obstacle course and time it. Kids have fun with it, they compete.
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Post by newt21 on Jul 18, 2014 19:16:32 GMT -6
what I have done is put the younger kids in groups and rotate them so they get to try all the skills, oline, qb and running backs, recievers teach them some skills like how to catch and run a certain route, how to hand off to rb, oline I taught stance and starts, then defense same thing teach a group for d line, inside lbers, outside linebackers, corners and safeties, then treat them with popsicles and while they eat talk about some area in football you want to cover, like teamwork, commitment, then done play ultimate football, we use to do a 3 day camp, for 3 hours each day, charged 20 and they'd get a t shirt This...only difference is when they play ultimate football/flag football, put them on teams and have a tournament where they play a different team each day. Have some of your kids help run the drills and instruction pieces (carries over for your Varsity/JV guys because they'll realize they're echoing what you're teaching them), and then have them coach their own team in the tournament. |
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Post by loop21572 on Jul 18, 2014 19:35:02 GMT -6
Some things we have done other than skill work:
1) Timed 40 (kids get into racing each other).
2) Timed obstacle course. Have two identical courses and let the kids race.
3) Field goal kicking contest.
4) Egg toss. Good last day thing.
5) Take 10 minutes to show some of your highlight video. The kids get into it.
6) Finish every day with a game. We play what we call Razzle Dazzle. Kids can do both forward and backwards laterals until 2 hand touched.
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Post by freezeoption on Jul 18, 2014 19:46:04 GMT -6
yes, we have jr high and high school kids help, we also do a tourney with the ultimate football, I just didn't mention it
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Post by footballfanatic on Oct 16, 2014 9:20:27 GMT -6
Might be too late to the game here, but with the younger kids, I like to do team-building activities. On the first day, we do one that encourages the kids to be vocal on the field and learn names. Then on the second day, we do ones that encourage creative thinking and problem solving while working as a team. And usually cap it off with trust-building activities. A great book to read is "101 Team Building Activities".
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