Year 5-8 - Lesson 2 - Dribbling

Each student has a ball in an area defined by cones or lines. Students will dribble the ball in different ways to see which is best for basketball. The students will start off by patting the ball with the palm of their hand, use their elbow, push the ball into the ground with their knuckles, use the underneath of their hand and finally push the ball down using their fingertips. The coach can ask the students if they noticed a difference and which technique is best. (The correct technique is to push the ball to the ground using your fingertips as you have the most control over the ball.) The next step is to decide how high we need to be dribbling the ball; as high as their knees, their nose and then finally their waist. Again, ask the students which one is the best. (The correct technique is waist height). The students practice dribbling the ball with their fingertips, at waist height and then repeat with non-dominant hand. Add in extra variations of dribbling; switching from hand to hand, dribbling behind their back, between their legs etc.

Players each have a basketball and dribble it inside a given area. The aim of the game is to protect their own basketball, while trying to knock other players basketballs away from them. Each player starts with 10 points. Players will lose points if another player knocks their basketball away, or if players lose control and their basketball bounces beyond the playing boundary. If a student knocks another students basketball away, they will gain a 1 point. The winner is the player left with the most points.

To make this activity harder for students, the coach can minimise the space this activity is played in, reduce the amount of points given at the start of each round (e.g. 5, 3) or can have a knockout round where players only start with 1 point, as soon as this point is lost they have been eliminated from the game (can no longer gain a point for knocking other players basketball). The player left at the end (last student standing) will be the winner. 

Modifications

Time limit, bigger/smaller area

Split the class into two teams, with one team lining up on each side of the court. The coach calls out a number between 2-5, and that is how many people go in from the front of each line e.g. if a 2 is called, the first two people go in for that round. The players that go in must run and touch the wall or hoop opposite to the one they are scoring in, before running in and playing basketball. The team to score first gets a point, and all the players go to the back of their line.

Modifications

Put a time limit on how long players are allowed to score.