Hey guys, I need some help. I volunteered to teach a begining hockey skating course to 5-10 year old boys. They don't have the longest attention spans, so I'm trying to come up with games that I can use to keep them moving and learning stuff.

So far we have learned how to get up after we fall down. We've learned the stance, and the 2-foot glide, and now we've done Swizzels. They are all doing pretty good so far, I just need to get some games going for the little guys so that they keep having fun. I think that's the most important part anyway.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As a former camp counselor who generally worked with the youngest kids in camp, let me assure you that I am a master at turning anything into a game.

With kids, little games are a great way to reinforce whatever skill you just taught them. If you can establish a pattern of teaching them a couple things and then letting them play a game that uses the new skills, they will always be eager to learn.

So enough preaching to the choir.

I don't know if your kids are ready for Red Light Green Light. Maybe later on that will be a great way to wrap up your classes. It's also a good game to see who can listen to the instructor the best.

See who can stop the closest to a puck without touching it.

See who can fall down and get up the fastest. Or split them into teams and do this as a relay. Skate a short distance. Drop to the ice. Come back and tag your team mate.

See who can skate on one foot the longest. Have them try it on the other foot.

Who remembers the most from last week?

Have them try to skate the letters of their name.

Play a mini soccer game using a puck. No sticks.

Play "Everybody's It" in a small circle. The idea is to be the last one standing. Everyone is it. When you say go, kids try to tag each other. If you are tagged, wait outside the circle. If you fall. You're out. If you skate outside the circle, you're out. If you tag each other at the same time, you're both out. The game goes pretty fast so the kids sitting out usually stay interested and want to play another round. If your class is big, you can have more than one circle going at once.

Who can pick up the most cones or pucks?

Who wants to come back next week??

Thanks Curt! Those are awesome.

We've been playing Read Light Green light 2 weeks now, so some of the other ones will be good.

Thanks again.

Curt,

Those are all great ideas!

MSU, how far up the skill list are you going? are you teaching hockey stops? (which, I can STILL only really do facing one direction)

Trevor