Coaching tools › Activities › Dribbling and 1v1
Free activity · Intramural curriculum, ages 4–8Cone Monster
The coach is the Cone Monster and carries a cone. If the monster puts its cone on your ball, you freeze with the ball on your head and legs apart, and a teammate frees you by passing a ball through your legs. The first game with a defender in it.
Setup
The coach is the Cone Monster and carries a cone. Everyone else dribbles. If the monster puts its cone on your ball, you freeze: ball on your head, legs apart. A teammate frees you by passing a ball through your legs.
- Head up to find space.
- Beat the defender, then speed away.
Make it easier or harder
- Easier: The monster walks and roars before every catch.
- Harder: A player becomes the monster.
Coach’s notes
- If It's Chaos: Monster can't catch anyone? Shrink the grid or add a second monster.
Why it works
A defender is a frightening idea at four, so the first one is a monster who roars before every catch. Players learn to see where the pressure is coming from and dribble away from it, which is 1v1 before anyone calls it that.
Freeing a frozen teammate with a pass through the legs is the first pass most of these players will ever make on purpose. Celebrate it.
Where it sits
This activity is from Pre-K · Week 3 · Space & 1v1 in the Full Season Intramural Curriculum for Pre-K to 2nd grade. Every session in the book has the same shape: arrival play, Soccer Island, two or three activities and the game, with two coaching points a day, an easier and a harder version of everything, and a fix for when it turns to chaos.
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Ages 4–6 · Dribbling and 1v1Space ManPlayers dribble anywhere in the grid and freeze with a foot on the ball when you shout.
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The Full Season Intramural Curriculum covers Pre-K, Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade: one page per session, nothing to memorize, built so a professional trainer and a parent who volunteered last week run the same quality session. 112 animated videos included.