Advice for coaching 7-8 yr olds (coach pitch)

[87Twins91]

My son and I are "moving up" as coach and player from t-ball to single-A (7-8 yr old coach pitch) this summer. I'd like to have good crisp practices (no longer than 1 hour) that stress the fundamentals, while keeping it as fun as possible for the kids. Any advice as far as what works well for practicing with kids in the 7-8 year old range?

Our league is the Coon Rapids American Little League, Coon Rapids, MN. We have 3 leagues (American, Central and National). The all-star team out of the National League made it to Williamsport last year.

Thank you!

[Deemax]

Four groups, four fifteen minute stations....zero dead time!
try alternating four of these stations differently each week:
Hitting off the tee
Hitting front toss
How to get out of the way of a pitch (use sponge balls)
Coach pitch batting practice (throw it crisp enough to eliminte most arc)
Infield
Outfield
base running
sliding practice
pitching practice (if your 7-8yr olds are in a kid pitch league)

Dont talk to much, the attention span goes bye-bye after about 30 seconds.

Good luck.

[87Twins91]

Great advice, thanks. I think the 15 minute stations will work nicely. Keep them hopping and focused (I hope)!

[Chris O'Leary]

Great advice, thanks. I think the 15 minute stations will work nicely. Keep them hopping and focused (I hope)!

Stations are good.

Stay away from practices where the coach pitches to one kid at a time and everyone else stands around in the field.

[Coach C]

an item to add too the list would be safety. Discuss where their bats go when they arrive at practice and when they are to pick them up and what it means to ground the bat. Also space them out during catch warm up,
some arms are less accurate than others. Dirt clods and rolling in the chalk lines start to subside at this age. Have fun!

[TonyK]

Have the first ones to arrive at practice play catch with each other until everyone gets there.

Teach them what the baserunning rules are at your level. At the end of our practices we used to divide the team in half trying to even out the speed of the players. One team started at second base and the other one started at home.

This was a relay race and the first runner was given a baseball. Every runner must touch all four bases and give the baseball to the next person. The winning team is the team with the last baserunner having run around all four bases first. By splitting the two teams up two bases apart it minimizes any accidents with two runners colliding. Sometimes we had two of our coaches as the anchor legs. It also teaches them teamwork because a bad handoff means the baseball is dropped and that loses time. Most of our races were very close.

Now is the time to read up on coaching books for ages 7-9 and/or buy coaching videos.