I have a lot of volleyball fans in my 6th grade classes. I wanted to work on the sport, but we really don’t have enough room for games; nor do we have very many volleyballs (only 1 real one!) I am planning on trying some modified games next week, but decided to do some skill work first. I divided the class into groups and had them rotate thru 5 stations. Each group had a leader that was experienced in volleyball so they could help out along the way. I like giving the kids leadership opportunities whenever possible. Here are the 5 stations we used:
#1: serve: underhand serve to the wall
#2: sets: one partner lay on their back on the floor. The other would drop the ball and they floor person would return it with a set. Repeat about 10 times then trade places
#3: bumps against the wall back and forth with a partner
#4: bumps: group in a big circle, bump the ball back and forth, call “mine”, try and keep the ball in the air
#5: workout: list of fitness activities to do (their workout for the day)
I rotated the stations every 5 minutes. I rotated through the room helping where needed, mainly with the “sets” as they had a hard time with these.
Cons of this lesson: There are always a few kids who goof off rather than following instructions at each station. As I mentioned, we are short volleyballs so we had to use blow-up beach balls for some stations and had trouble with those losing air. Short amount of time to work on skill
Pros of this lesson: Most of the kids stayed engaged. Group leaders could help with the skills. Gave the kids a touch of the sport in a fun way. A lot of movement, so those that weren’t interested in volleyball stayed involved.
All in all, this lesson doesn’t go too far with the sport; but for the setting I have it worked really well. I will follow it up with some modified volleyball games in the next weeks to practice the skills some more.