Once your little one understands what kicking is you may want to work on having them kick further and more accurately. Also to be able to pass the ball back and forth. Here are some of the areas to progress kicking!
Kicking a moving ball
- Start with the ball stationary
- Once they can consistently kick that you can slowly roll the ball to them (faster is harder to react and they are working on figuring out timing so that their foot meets the ball when it gets to them)
- Then work on slowly kicking the ball to them and have them kick it back to you – in the beginning they may consistently try to stop the ball before kicking it. To combat this make it slower, move closer, use a larger ball, give them verbal and visual cues. Lots of options!
- Slowly work on increasing the speed of the moving ball and the distance you are able to move
Kicking the ball accurately
- Start with a large target (a whole wall is great!) so that they can have some success
- Also, have them fairly close to the target so there is less opportunity for the ball to deviate off course
- As they get better at this you can progress it by narrowing the target slowly and slowly moving them further away
- Don’t try to do both at once, and if you are narrowing the target you may need to move them a little closer again to start or vice versa. Play around with it
- You can also pass the ball back and forth like above!
Moving to kick the ball
- Use spots on the floor and let them know where you will be kicking it to
- So for instance if they are standing on the blue spot and off to the right is another spot, kick the ball to the other spot so they know where to move to
- Eventually you can move away from the visual cue and just give a verbal cue
- Start close to them and gradually increase the distance and/or speed of the kick. Just like above don’t try to do both at the same time!
What other areas would you like tips on for kicking?
