Physical Fitness for Life

Warm up – have your group run to a point you designate, then stretch, take roll. 

Goal for Session 1 - How to play the game. 

Skill development: 

Eye and hand coordination 

I. Set up the field. Need six cones and flat discs. Place base cones with 10-12 steps between them. Put cones on the other side (maybe 20 feet apart). Place flat discs also in the center and at each end of the field. On the center line of cones place the nerf dodge balls. 

lI. Explain the rules – no deliberate hits to the head. If they hit someone in the head the thrower is out and the other player stays in. If someone catches a ball, that player who threw it is out. If the ball bounces on the ground first then hits a player they are not out. If the player tries to catch a ball and it drops to the ground, they are out. They cannot go over the center line or go out of bounds to retrieve a ball - to do so makes them out. The only way a player can get back into the game is if one of their teammates catches a ball. 

The first player out will be able to come back into the game. One ball is designated as the magic or special ball that when caught, brings their whole team back in. Players who are out will stand on each side of the instructor. 

Game: 

Divide the group into two teams and have them go to opposite sides. Blow the whistle and each team runs up to the center line where the nerf balls are and then they throw them at one another. You can do variations with them running up to the center line, i.e. crab walk, jumping jacks, twirling, running backwards, and leaping like a frog - or any other way you want to keep it interesting and fun. 

** Kids are loathe to get out of the game when hit. Please tell them they are on their honor system in the beginning. HAVE FUN! 

If you feel like a game is dragging on too long, don't be afraid to just end it. Sometimes the kids become disengaged if they are standing around for a long period of time. Start a countdown and tell them the team with the most players left in the game wins. This will save you extra time to play more games in the class. 

Another tip is to simply yell "Out" whenever any student gets hit by a ball. You saying it out loud will let the student know that you were watching them and this may help prevent students from cheating during the course of the game. If they still don't leave the game, don't be afraid to call them out by name. 

A majority of the classes are played on a field so the dodgeballs are always going to roll far away from the boundaries. One rule that you might implement is to let the students run and get the dodgeballs from outside the boundaries until there are only 3-4 people left on their team/side. Once the game drops to those numbers, the students that are already out must roll the balls back into the game for their teammates to throw. They can no longer go out of the boundaries at this point. This is helpful sometimes because you, the coach, don't have to chase all of the balls outside of the boundaries and can actually ref the game. 

Also implement a "clearing" rule at the start of the game. What that means basically is once the students run up to grab a dodgeball they cannot throw immediately. They have to go back to clearing zone(a cone in our case) before they can throw at the other team. You can place them halfway between the student starting line and the line where all the balls are setup. Also, only use at the very beginning of the game, not every time they run up to grab a ball from the line. This prevents students from arguing about early outs, who got hit first, etc. 

For the younger classes only 

The younger students have a harder time grasping the rules so here are some tips that may help. 

 

1. Go over the word "dodge" with them. A lot of younger students tend  to stand there and just get hit by the ball. You might need to demo and  visually show them how to move out the way so they can understand what to do in the game. Keep stressing it throughout the class. 

2. Keep them active. With the younger students, you don't want them sitting out for long periods of time. So what you can do is let them back in the game after a short period of time once they've been hit. Just emphasize that they must come out once they get hit to follow the general rules.