It's Game Day!!!

We all know children have short attention spans. Some adults do too! The average person can focus on someone speaking for about 5-10 minutes. That is not very long when you are thinking in terms of coaching a practice lasting a few hours. I admit it. I got bored coaching from time to time. Doing the same things day after day got to me. Yes, there are basics that must be done every day to keep the foundation strong, but doing the same assignment every day wore on me and my athletes.

To battle this, I decided to have "game day" at least once a week. I used to call it "fun day" but later tried to stay away from that term, because hopefully the athletes were having fun every day and not just once in a while. Why did we have game day? Some of our athletes practiced six days a week (25+ hours) so we needed something to break up the daily grind. Only 30% of athletes stay in sport past age 13, but when athletes enjoy what they are doing, they will participate in the sport longer. Athletes can also learn valuable life lessons from games. They learn problem solving, how to work independently and in groups, strategy, and winning and losing. As coaches, you will figure out who your leaders are and how they lead. You will also figure out how well an athlete can work with others and by themselves.

When you see some of the games I came up with, you will see how laughter was a big part of of practice. If you are in the middle of your rotation and hear a sheep "bahhhh" you are likely going to smile or giggle a little. With laughter comes less stress. With less stress, your body can take over and do what it is capable of doing. With a less stressful environment, bonds are made and relationships are formed and made stronger. As a coach, I loved being part of this and witnessing their growth in gymnastics and in their relationships.

Here are just a few examples of games we played during practice. These are gymnastics specific games, but you can definitely tweak them to make them work for your sport. I did beam and floor so there are I do not have any vault or bar games listed.

The School Bus was a favorite on balance beam. If you can zoom in on the picture, you can see how I tried to make the skill go with each animal. For example, the sheep was a sheep jump. Some of them didn't work perfectly, but I got all the skills I wanted on it. There is nothing like lightening the mood with a duck quack coming out of nowhere. The video shows how it worked. The girls would pull the lever and whatever animal it landed on was the skill they did.

Chutes and Ladders I did this one for both floor and beam. You cannot see it, but the bottom half of the board was just for beam and the top half was used for floor. I will caution you sometimes floor will get backed up a little because of the length of a routine. They would take a turn with the spinner and move to the correct spot on the board. They would do the skill and once it was completed, spin again. They followed the rules of going up the ladder or down the chute. Since there were not enough player pieces for the group, I went to a craft store and bought a mix of buttons and jewels so each athlete could have their own individual game piece.

Draw a Skill This one works for teams or individually on beam. I had them draw their name on the dry erase board by the beams. They draw a paper out of the box, complete the task, put points next to their name, and draw again. You really competitive athletes will get A LOT done in this game because they will never stop moving. I actually had the girls write out the skills and points so they had a little ownership in the game. Before we played, I went through and adjusted the points as I thought necessary. I did not have them put which beam to go on because not every athlete was in the same phase of training each skill. They could ask me which beam and we would choose together.

Candy Land This was the very first board game I ever transformed. Let me tell you... there are TONS of spaces to fill on this board. If you have been around gymnastics for a while, you can tell I made this before the level changes. If you were to make this board now, you would make the level 5 part level 4 and the level 6 part level 5. I actually got dice for this one instead of using the color cards, but that was just a personal choice. Again, there are not enough game pieces for everyone so I used the buttons and jewels for each athlete.

Game not pictured: Jenga I treated this game like the Draw Out of the Box game. Write a skill and points on each game piece and stack the pieces. Pull the pieces out of the stack like you would in the real game. Complete the skill, put your points down, and pick another piece. I did not have a consequence for knocking the stack down.

I loved creating these. I had games with popsicle sticks, cards, and apps on my phone. I know there are so many more out there. Be creative and don't be afraid for the games to be a bit silly. I didn't work with pre-schoolers, but most of my games use pre-school props. If you have any questions or want more ideas, feel free to contact me at blpinkham@beyond-coaching.net