From a safety point of view, have a coach or parent watch the kids while they wait to bat. Hopefully they are behind a fence. With swinging bats and possibly flying bats you do not want to let kids wander to close to the batter.
Make practices fun and keep the kids busy/involved as much as you can while teaching the basics of the game.
You’ll likely have at least one parent who tells you that you have no idea what you are doing and/or that you are doing it wrong. Don’t listen to them.
Best catching drill in the world. It’s Homework for the parents. Kids naturally want to catch a ball with the fingers of the glove pointed down. This is great for a grounders and low line drives, but makes it virtually impossible to catch a fly ball. So here’s the drill.
They lay down on the floor. Parent drops a tennis ball about shoulder high or higher. The natural reaction when on the floor is to catch with fingers pointed up (the correct way). Have the parents do this 25 times each night. They now know how to catch and you don’t have to use tennis balls which are harder to catch and throw.
Target Practice. By a cheap stuffed animal. Set it up on the T. See who can hit it from the pitchers mound (Adjust distance as needed). The winner keeps the animal until next practice.
Get parent help during practice so some kids are hitting. Some a catching grounders, and some are catching fly balls. Nothing is more boring to a 5/6 y/o than sanding in the field during batting practice.
Team Races. Split team in two. Team 1 goes to 2nd Base. Team 2 stays at home. Race.
I can tell you what not to do based on my kid’s experience.
When my son was about that age we signed him up for T-ball. I think they had maybe 2 or 3 practices and then biweekly games, no more practices. Every kid was in the field and every kid got to bat once per inning. I think it just went for some set time, so they only played a few innings.
What this resulted in was kids in the field rarely or never fielding or throwing the ball, and then batting a couple times a game. It was a complete waste of time, all the while sitting in the NC summer heat and humidity for an hour. We were never so relieved when he said he didn’t want to do it the following year.
It made zero sense for skills acquisition or for that matter having any fun.
You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the progress they’ve made when you get to the last third of the season. You’ll start seeing outs from infield plays more regularly, more contact with the ball from more players, etc. As a coach, you don’t need a baseball pedigree at this level; you’re looking for the technique to keep the maximum number of kids engaged the longest duration. In my case, it meant following the cues from parents who’d done it the year before. Keeping things moving quickly in practice(limiting number of swings to three comes to mind) will help.
For a lot of kids, this will be their first team activity which means it’s also the first time parents see their kids aptitude levels. Hilarity does not ensue. The best advice I can offer is to make sure everyone plays and give equal praise but your best players always are the first baseman and the kid playing the spot where the pitchers mound is; it’s the only way you’ll get any outs. But remember your real mission is to keep this fun and supportive with a side dish of player development. Have fun yourself! It’s one of parenthood’s passages…
There’s a lot of talk about fundamentals in this thread.
Some of the kids are 5? Good luck with that.
I coached Tball and my goals were the same as yours: Fun and get them interested in continuing with it. Fun is first, and most important, and at that age everything else can be sacrificed in the name of fun.
Our format was a 30 minute practice, 15 minute break and then a 30 minute game. For practice we had half the field and the other team had the other half (we took turns with the infield). The other coaches did drills with the kids who would line up, wait their turn to hit the ball, or field it, etc. It drove me crazy. On day 1 I told the other parents that we can do that but if I get a couple of volunteers each day (it doesn’t have to be the same people, use it as a chance to be closer to your kid!) I can do it better. I had about 12 kids and with 2 volunteers I had usually 3 stations the kids would rotate through. Throwing, catching and hitting (which included running the bases). After 5 minutes they switch. Do each station twice.
Keep the energy up, keep it fun. Read the room, if they aren’t into it switch it up. If it’s hot, break early. Every experience should be positive. 5 year old don’t want to learn fundamentals, they want to have fun. That’s what keeps them in it.
So I took the bait and volunteered to coach…now what?!?
I do understand the super low stakes nature of t-ball with the primary goal being to get kids to have fun and a secondary goal of getting them interested in the sport. Anyone have any experience or tips or do’s/don’t?
Thinking maybe tag around the bases to get them accustomed to following that path after their at bat. Maybe trying to work on catching with a beachball, as I think a glove and ball is a tall ask for 5/6 year olds.
Thanks in advance for any tips!
You may be able to find resources on line. When I started coaching my kids’ soccer around that age I was able to find all kinds of information on age appropriate games and such for development. I think a lot of it was from US Soccer, don’t know if there is anything similar for baseball, but I would think so.
You don’t want to be the guy out there trying to get 6 year olds to do complex drills and running wind sprints 
I didn’t see rule #1
Rule #1 Never approach a kid with a bat.
If a ball needs to be placed on the T – refer to rule #1…
Your junk will thank you.
Do your best to keep the over competitive parents under control.
Pop fly practice… Have the kids put a batting helmet on. Toss tennis balls up and have the kids try to have the ball hit the helmet. Super fun!
As someone else mentioned, more volunteers is better so you can keep all of the kids busy throughout every practice. Standing around waiting for your turn isn’t fun.
We would typically have a coach, assistant coach, and three or four extra volunteers at every practice and game. The extra people are particularly important to run the hitting drills stations before a game.
Pop fly practice… Have the kids put a batting helmet on. Toss tennis balls up and have the kids try to have the ball hit the helmet. Super Fun.
That sounds awesome!
One more tip I forgot -get a huge bag of dubble bubble and give each kid a piece at the end of practice!
The one thing I haven’t seen mention yet is after the game. Make sure you have a schedule in place for snacks after the game. The occasional ice cream or snow cone is great as well. At our park, it is pretty common for the younger age groups to hand out a game ball. By end of the season each kid gets a ball. We’ve also had coaches that give out stickers, for example for a great hit. They put the stickers on their helmets. I had a coach that used to give out a pack of baseball cards to the player of the day, and I’ll always remember getting excited about that.
I can tell you what not to do based on my kid’s experience.
When my son was about that age we signed him up for T-ball. I think they had maybe 2 or 3 practices and then biweekly games, no more practices. Every kid was in the field and every kid got to bat once per inning. I think it just went for some set time, so they only played a few innings.
What this resulted in was kids in the field rarely or never fielding or throwing the ball, and then batting a couple times a game. It was a complete waste of time, all the while sitting in the NC summer heat and humidity for an hour. We were never so relieved when he said he didn’t want to do it the following year.
It made zero sense for skills acquisition or for that matter having any fun.
I can tell you this happens way more often than not. From a coaching perspective, not practicing was more a function of the league dolling out field time to practice. Between t-ball and all the other age groups, there was very little time left for teams to get scheduled field time for practice due to scheduling the fields for games.
I can tell you what not to do based on my kid’s experience.
When my son was about that age we signed him up for T-ball. I think they had maybe 2 or 3 practices and then biweekly games, no more practices. Every kid was in the field and every kid got to bat once per inning. I think it just went for some set time, so they only played a few innings.
What this resulted in was kids in the field rarely or never fielding or throwing the ball, and then batting a couple times a game. It was a complete waste of time, all the while sitting in the NC summer heat and humidity for an hour. We were never so relieved when he said he didn’t want to do it the following year.
It made zero sense for skills acquisition or for that matter having any fun.
I can tell you this happens way more often than not. From a coaching perspective, not practicing was more a function of the league dolling out field time to practice. Between t-ball and all the other age groups, there was very little time left for teams to get scheduled field time for practice due to scheduling the fields for games.
Do you really need a “field” for Tball practice? Throw down the t, a few peices of cardboard for bases if you want, go really fancy a spray paint foul lines… Let the fun begin. — Again… DON’T APPROACH A KID HOLDING A BAT
Again… DON’T APPROACH A KID HOLDING A BAT
I’d like to stress that this can’t be said enough. I’d also like to point out that it does NOT expire after teeball… Just this past weekend, an 11 year old kid on the team I coach hit an umpire square in the nuts while taking a practice swing just outside of the batter’s box. The kid wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary; it was the umpires fault and unfortunately his sack paid the price!
Do you really need a “field” for Tball practice? Throw down the t, a few peices of cardboard for bases if you want, go really fancy a spray paint foul lines… Let the fun begin.
Dave, in theory, yes, you can practice tee-ball (soccer, etc.) just about anywhere. But when you’re the coach, you have to have approval from the city (or county, league, etc,) to use the field, even if it is just an empty corner of a park, which it often is. They actually issue a written permit. So that is where the limitation comes from. Depending on where you live, this may seem ridiculous, but in a populous county or metro area with a ton of different leagues, sports, age groups, etc., there actually does need to be some sort of scheduled access for organized sports practices. Now, not all coaches respect this, and some will just roll up wherever and whenever they want and hold practice, but I always advise against this with new coaches.