Help! Asked to coach girls 5-7 softball - what do i do at practice?

Congrats on the oppertunity Cuda. You will have a blast. First off remember always, that they are young little sponges . They are very much aware of what they see, and are exposed to . Mabey more so than we as adults are. I believe what most are posting here. Make sure its Fun and safe. Lots of work first with ruddber softballs .A lot of running games ,alot of wiffle ball games so they begin to understand the game . Be sure to have a couple of helpers. Mabey ask some players from 16u or 18u teams to help. They remember what it was like and most times can guide you along the way. Most of all enjoy yourself, and they will see that. Remember you may be responsible for working with a future champ or champs. Have fun!!!!

DD= daughter
Throwing the bat head is keeping a compact swing with the end cap pointed towards the umpire until the hands have passed the hips while rotating, and then snapping the barrel through the hitting zone. Casting means to move the hands out and away from the body and usually swinging like a door or a gate with arms still while the upper body rotates around. This is HUGE that you correct it before it becomes muscle memory.

Cuda said:

Hey, what do you mean fingers up vs down?

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Basically, if the ball is coming at them waist-high or higher, the fingers of their glove should be pointing up. If the ball is coming in below the waist (like a grounder or a low hopper), they need to swivel their wrists so that the fingers of their glove point down.

In the clock drill, they stand up with their glove on and move their catching arm in a full circle like a hand on a clock as if they were catching a ball at arm's length. As they go slowly around the "clock", they need to keeping moving the glove into the right position to catch a ball at a given hour. So a righty starting at 12 o'clock puts her glove straight up in the air, fingers pointing up, as they circle their arms to their right and down, they should easily pass through one o'clock, two o'clock and three o'clock. Four o'clock and five o'clock should come naturally, but make sure they now have the fingers pointed down instead of trying to cock their wrists to keep them pointed up. Just at/after six o'clock, is when they need to quickly flip their hand so that catches will now be backhand. (They need to learn this.) They'll keep up the backhand glove position all the way through back to 12 o'clock, and should pass naturally through fingers down to fingers up going through nine o'clock. It's very dull; hopefully one or two times through will do the trick.

A lot of times when they're young, they get all mixed up and twisted around and they'll stab at the ball with the glove in a bad position, e.g trying to catch a ball coming in a 7 o'clock as a forehand catch or trying to catch a ball coming in at 5 o'clock as a backhand catch. That usually doesn't work out too well.