MAD 2013-2014

I started coaching in the beginning of the year. Started out I honestly believed I would knock it out of the park coaching kids. Little did I know coaching 4/5th grade girls and sometimes boys is very tough. Just getting the kids focused is already hard. Imagine trying to teach kids who just want to run around the gym.

 Instructions to kids

Checking if the kids are properly running a fast break

On the first day I remember warming up with Mr Hardy's recommended drill by running up and down the court with the basketball for 5 minutes. Afterwards we, Daniel Li, Chris Lau, Joseph Lo and I were on our own. We decided to do 4 stations. Joseph will lead the shooting station, Chris leading the ball handling station, Daniel led the passing station and I led a rebounding/boxing out station. All these stations went on for 5 minutes before the kids rotated stations. In the shooting station, we set out some colored plastic thing on the floor close to the kids basket and Jo attempted to teach them the right forms and techniques. In the ball handling station Chris taught the kids how to train to become and great ball handler by just doing different simple drills like pounding the ball with your right arm, then switching to left arm after. In the passing station Daniel demonstrated the chest pass and bounce pass.

mad 2013/2014

Working on lesson plan.

So during one of MAD meetings, Cresswell our supervisor gave us many great points on improving and making our lessons more fun and organized. When we first started teaching we would just think about what to do on the spot. That is not a good thing when trying to teach elementary kids a sport. So Cresswell said that we SHOULD have a plan and that we should start writing plans for the lessons ahead of time. After writing down lesson plans, I noticed that we had more time during lessons because we weren't stopping and thinking what we should do. Being organized is very important.

MAD 2013/2014

Our second lesson we continued with the 4 stations class. Again we warmed up with the running up and down the court with a ball for 5 minutes. Then split off into 4 different stations. Joseph ran the shooting station again but this time we worked on lay ups and getting the foot steps right. We put down colored plastics things to show where to step and when to take up for the lay ups. Daniel continued working on the passing, getting the kids to use not just their arms to pass but their hips as well. I was working on a defensive station so I set out cones and taught the kids to slide properly and to stay low. At the end of my station I could tell that the kids did not like doing defensive drills. Chris again worked on ball handling except this time he added something else, he added running to his drill. Running to cones then switch arms the run to next cone and switch again. Chris told me after everyone got through the 4 stations that he already saw improvements in some of the kids dribbling skills.