What does a practice plan look like for a 1st grade basketball team? If you are coaching a 1st grade basketball team, what should you be doing as a coach to help each of your players develop as much as possible. In the following practice plan, I will show you what I would emphasized if I were you. As you will see the fundamentals of basketball(dribbling, passing, shooting and defense) will take priority over team development. The better a player is at the fundamentals of the game, the better team player they will be in the future. At the 1st grade level the emphasis needs to be on the fundamental development of each player.
As a note you will see with this practice plan and all my practice plans, each segment will be broken up into 5 minute sessions. Kids nowadays are so overloaded with instantaneous information that attention spans have shorten. Most of the practice has duplicate drills or skill development in back to back segment. This gives the practice the ability to work both hands in a dribbling drill or both sides of the floor in a shooting drill. This simple change is enough to keep kids attention. After 10 minutes an entire new skill is started. At an absolute maximum I will only do something for 15 minutes. If the team is practicing something for 15 straight minutes then it is time to move on to something else. Period. So here is a practice plan for 1st graders.
*Note-These plans and drills can be used for younger and older players. The links take you to a more breakdown description of each drill.
0-5 Minutes-Dynamic Warmups
5-10 Minutes-Right Hand Dribble Through Cones
10-15 Minutes-Left Hand Dribble Through Cones
15-20 Minutes-Partner Passing-Stationary
20-25 Minutes-Partner Passing-Bounce, Chest, Overhead, Wraparound
25-30 Minutes-Crossover Dribble
30-35 Minutes-Layups
35-40 Minutes-Jumpstops and Jumpshots off Dribble-5-8 feet
40-45 Minutes-One on One Closeouts
45-50 Minutes-2 on 2 up to 5 on 5 Closeouts-The number can change each practice. Sometimes just work on 2 on 2 for better coaching. Sometimes 5 on 5 closeouts for more basketball game related practice.
50-55 Minutes-Game Situation-Up 1 with 1 minute left. Down 1 with 1 minute left. Etc.
55-60 Minutes-Basketball Game-Knockout. Dribble Tag–Shooting Relay Race
Now let me breakdown what I am looking to do for each segment. I will group some of these segments together. Again the main focus at this age should be having fun and skill development. It should not be about winning and losing games. And if you are a coach focused on just winning and losing then the more skilled your players are then the more likely you are to win games.
0-5 Minutes Dynamic Warmups
This should be getting the players warmed up and loose and ready to run and practice. This could be static stretching or dynamic stretching. This could be high knees and butt kicks, etc. Anything that will get the players ready to practice. So some light jogs to heavy jogs to sprints will also get the players ready to practice.
5-15 Minutes-Dribbling Through Cones
This is a double block. 1st 5 minutes could be for right hand. 2nd 5 minutes for left hand. Dribbling is the biggest fundamental necessary for players to be good in basketball. At least 5 of the 12 separate segments of this practice will have a dribbling component. And a couple of the others could as well. I put a big emphasis on dribbling. Every player needs to be able to dribble the basketball. I like to start every practice with some dribbling drill even at the high school level. This is how important I view dribbling to be. For this set some cones down and have the players go through the cones dribbling with their right and left hand.
15-25 Minutes-Partner Passing
The next fundamental is passing. The four basic passes is chest, bounce, overhead and wraparound. I would spend the next 10 minutes on passing. Working on just these 4 passes will be more then enough to fill this time. And it may be picking 2 of the 4 basic passes each practice to focus on. This segment can be having the players stand 8-10 feet apart and pass the ball back and forth.
25-30 Minutes-Crossover Dribble
Again I would go back to dribbling and this time using a change of direction dribble. This can be stationary or moving. You can use the same cone setup as before but now have the players crossover dribble at each cone.
30-40 Minutes-Layups, Jumpstops, and Jumpshots
These 10 minutes would be to work on shooting. Dribbling will also be used during these segments but are not the main focus. I would start with layups and then slowly start to work on jumpstops and finally having the players learn how to shoot off the dribble with jumpshots. I would keep the jumpshots to within about 5-8 feet. Any farther out then shooting form would probably breakdown due to lack of strength. This segment would focus on shooting the ball around the basket.
40-50 Minutes-1 on 1 closeouts up to 5 on 5 closeouts
These 10 minutes would focus on defense. I would start with just a 1 on 1 closeout. One defender closes out to one offensive player. This gives you as the coach the ability to assess and fix any mistakes. I still do this drill almost everyday at the high school level. Once the players go through 1 on 1 then you can add additional players to increase how many closeouts are taking place all at once. This can also help offense by having the players play out a possession after the closeout when they are able and ready to play live.
50-55 Minutes-Game Situation
Basketball IQ is terrible. I would start trying to teach the players basketball game skills at this level. The players may not completely understand but at least the foundations are getting put in place for the IQ to grow. These situations can be as simple as up 1 with 1 minute left. Then have the players play out the game. Basically keeping changing the amount up or down and how much time is left. Explain what needs to take place in this situation and then let the players play the situation out. These practice situations can be the difference between winning or losing close games later in their basketball life.
55-60 Minutes-Game
I would also end the practice at this age with a fun game. Let the kids play knockout or dribble tag. Do something fun so the players are walking out of the gym at the end of practice with a smile on their face. This keeps the game fun and keeps them wanting to come back for more.
Conclusion
At this age I would not want to go anymore then an hour. Anything over an hour and the ability to keep the kids attention would be hard. Also keep the focus on the fundamentals and skill development. While this is a simple practice plan. Different drills and activities can be added in place of some that I have put. Keep changing drills enough to keep the attention of the kids each practice. For more drills, check out my master drill list and drill sections of the website.