What are your favorite drills/activities for U6 soccer practice?
I just agreed to coach my daughter’s U6 soccer team. I’m looking for fun mini games and drills I can do to help the girls improve skills but also enjoy practice.
- mhcorons—Communicating on the field. As each child passes the ball, they need to say who they’re passing it to. That player then needs to respond : “got it”, or “my ball”, or even simply saying the name of the next player they’re going to pass to. It gets the kids comfortable talking on the field, which is huge. Having each kid practice in goal. GK is a very difficult position. Players don’t understand it if they don’t practice it. Have your GK talk to their players. They can see the entire field & can often see things their field players can’t, especially if they have a man on. Different ways of dribbling the ball is always fun. Backwards, with one foot only (outside & inside of the foot), jumping jack been each dribble. It helps with muscle memory, while allowing their brain to focus on other things instead of just watching the ball. It’s not about how fast they can do it or how far they can go, but that they can keep control if their ball. Even if they’re only dribbling 6" each dribble. My son’s favorite is “team against Coach”. 😂 He still does this with his goalie coach - it’s amazing to see! At a younger age, they would scrimmage against their team coach. It’s still one of his favorite team building activities. Now, at U14, the coach will pick 2-3 players picked at random to be on his team.
1 answer
jon200
we loved U6 soccer last season! the kids had so much fun and learned really quickly.
most of the “suggested” U6 drills i’ve seen online are more complicated than our team used. the focus for us was on developing gross motor skills, learning to be part of a team, making friends, and having fun. some of the big hits were:
Freeze Tag
one kid is “Elsa” and runs around tagging the other players, who are all dribbling around the field. Elsa doesn’t have to dribble; she just runs! once a player is tagged, she has to stop dribbling and hold her ball above her head, frozen. other (non-frozen) players can unfreeze her by kicking their ball between her legs. Elsa eventually wins when everyone else is frozen (or Elsa needs a break!). it’s great to give 2 or 3 players the chance to be Elsa in each practice.Red Light, Green Light
this is really just dribbling practice but more fun. the kids dribble across the field, each with their own ball, but when the coach calls out “red light!” they all stop and put their foot on the ball. “green light!” means dribble again, and “yellow light!” means dribble sloooowly. you can make it more fun with more colors: “blue light!” might mean make a silly face, “purple light!” might mean spin, and (everyone’s favorite) “rainbow light!” is of course dancing.Shots on Goal
this one is easy — all the kids line up and take turns kicking the ball toward the goal. they get one shot at goal before kicking their ball back around and getting back in line.Passing Practice
the kids pair off and just kick the ball back and forth to each other.Kids vs Parents
we ended almost every practice with a kids vs parents matchup. no goalies, everyone just tries to score. this was the most popular activity by far; somehow the kids always managed to win. 🤔if you’ve got a 45 minute practice with a few minutes of warmup, you can really only fit 2 or 3 of these in each session. make sure to take water breaks!
@ritu will probably remember a few other favorites. i’ll tag in our U6 coach too once we add that feature! 🙂
- rachel—These are great! I’m going to try freeze tag at this week’s practice. I think they’ll LOVE that one. Sounds like you’ve got some talented kids over there, beating the parents over and over again. 😉
- rachel—@jon The freeze tag was a huge success. Thanks for the suggestion! We also tried doing a little 1v1, which they liked. Line up kids on opposite sides by the goal. Then I’d toss a ball into the middle and say “go!”, and then two kids at the front of the line battle it out against each other to score. Once one scores, they go to the back of the line and you go with the next two kids.
- jon—@rachel nice! the 1v1 is a great addition.