Brief background: The school I coach at is K-12. In the spring, I started up a junior high (6th-8th grade) team to get the girls playing before they got to me in high school. As I've mentioned before, I largely work with girls who have never played before.
We have a new coach for the junior high team this year, and she's a lot more dedicated. The school has a requirement where all teachers have to run an after-school club one day a week, so we decided to start up a Softball Club for the 6th-8th grade girls to get them familiar with the sport before team tryouts/practices in the spring.
The Softball Club meets once per week for what amounts to around 45 minutes of time. This is not a lot of time, so I'm trying to design these club meetings so we can maximize the limited time we have. Since it's a club and not an actual team, we won't exactly have full practices. It's more about giving them a taste of the sport/teaching the basics. My expectation is that most of the girls who join will have limited or no experience, so I want to tailor these meetings to them.
So how would you structure this Club, knowing it's basically a softball primer? How much time should we spend on the physical vs "classroom" (videos, demonstrations, etc.)? Since we only meet for 45 minutes, should we work on one skill (or a related skills) per meeting? I know keeping them focused on one thing for too long is tough at that age.
We have a new coach for the junior high team this year, and she's a lot more dedicated. The school has a requirement where all teachers have to run an after-school club one day a week, so we decided to start up a Softball Club for the 6th-8th grade girls to get them familiar with the sport before team tryouts/practices in the spring.
The Softball Club meets once per week for what amounts to around 45 minutes of time. This is not a lot of time, so I'm trying to design these club meetings so we can maximize the limited time we have. Since it's a club and not an actual team, we won't exactly have full practices. It's more about giving them a taste of the sport/teaching the basics. My expectation is that most of the girls who join will have limited or no experience, so I want to tailor these meetings to them.
So how would you structure this Club, knowing it's basically a softball primer? How much time should we spend on the physical vs "classroom" (videos, demonstrations, etc.)? Since we only meet for 45 minutes, should we work on one skill (or a related skills) per meeting? I know keeping them focused on one thing for too long is tough at that age.