Gooooood Afternoon LES!
This week’s lesson is a special lesson! Typically during Field Day, our sixth grade students face off the teachers in a volleyball match. Though I have never experienced this at LES I thought it was important to give our 6th graders a lesson dedicated to them as this moment we would be cheering for our peers.
SO Let’s talk about Volleyball! Did you know that Volleyball was originally called Mintonette? Did you know it was invented in Springfield, Massachusetts as a hopeful alternative to basketball; to encourage people who were older to continue to exercise and play in an activity that was no contact? DID YOU FURTHER KNOW that the inventor of Volleyball AND Basketball were friends and they went to the same high school -Mt. Hermon Prepatory School in Northfield Massachusetts?! How amazing is that! SO much local history!
Because we will be learning volleyball in quarantine, it will be difficult to learn the physical game, so I will give you the basics and ways to practice at home!
The BASIC Rules
-6 people on each side of the net, lined up in two rows of 3 people
-3 Touches on your side ONLY- ball must be hit to other side by 3rd touch
-A person cannot hit the ball two times in a row
-If the ball touches the ground on the other teams side, inside the boundary it is a point for the hitting team.
-If the ball hits on the line it is considered IN
-You cannot catch or throw the ball
-You CAN use any body part… however I am not teaching that in this lesson
-Volleyball net height is 7 foot, 4 and 1/8 inches! Please use a 4-6ft net height to have best results !
Let’s get to it!
The first thing we need to learn about volleyball is that we use only our arms and hands to strike the ball. The main types of touches are the underhand serve, overhand serve, bump, set, and spike.
We have learned about underhand striking and overhand striking with paddles, so now let’s learn with hands!
Underhand Serve
Wait, what is a serve? A serve is the way in which we send the ball to the other team and begin the game. These will be important when we learn how to play with a net as the ball needs to go OVER the net! If the ball hits the net but goes to the other side it is considered playable. For this lesson’s purposes if you have a way to mark a line on the ground or use a clothesline or hang a string in your yard just above your head, and can hang a towel over it you’ll be able to visually see where your target is.
The serve itself requires you to hold the ball with your non-htting hand. You will hold it between your waist and shoulders. Your feet will be set to hitting with your dominant hand- for my my dominant hand is my left hand, I will step with my right foot forward and right foot back- it is the opposite for righty’s. You will now swing with your dominant hand and aim to hit the ball in the CENTER. Use an open hand for precision and a closed fist for power. I like the open hand option. As you step and wind up to hit the ball, make sure you drop your opposite hand so the ball is free to be hit. Once you hit the ball it should now go over the net! You should stand about 10 feet away from your target JUST TO PRACTICE. Eventually we will work our way to the end line. To practice this you will start by dropping the ball to yourself, and striking it over your target. If you have someone to play with have them stand on the opposite side to retrieve, and they can then serve it back to you! If you need to use a wall, you can practice serving to the wall, soon we will be able to learn about other returns to keep you going at the wall!
Overhand Serve
This serve is more common and is slightly tricky. For this serve you will have the same footing and hold the ball with the same hand. You will ONLY hit with an open hand for this, like you are high fiving the ball! You will now toss the ball UP above your head slightly, and in line with your striking hand. You will need to be gentle because if the ball spins, it will go in the direction that it is spinning and you will lose control. You will now try to hit the ball over the net by tossing the ball up to your striking hand, and stepping OR jumping and hitting the ball over hand. To get comfortable with the toss, practice at least 10 times tossing to yourself getting the ball about 2 feet over your head, and having it land right in front of the hand you would hit with. This is the most important part, a toss too far away you will miss or the ball will go to the ground because you will hit too late, a toss too high and fast will cause you to hit the ball too soon making it go to the sky! This is an important one to practice as it is similar to the spike which is a difficult hit we will learn about soon! Practice this with someone OR a wall! Practice 10 tosses to yourself and then 5-10 minutes of serves.
BUMP
The bump is really important for receiving the ball, passing the ball as well as setting the ball if you don’t have the option to hand set- we will talk about shortly! A bump is when we place our fingers into our other hand and place our thumbs next to each other. We do not make a fist with our two hands! We use our forearms to strike the ball. The best way to practice this is to use your buddy to throw the ball in your direction. You will want to get lower than the ball, and set yourself up to receive the ball in the middle of your forearms. Here you will use a light to medium force to hit the ball. You are either aiming to pass to a team mate (using a lighter force because they are close to you) or just bumping it over the net to get it out of your side. To practice this- find your buddy and have them toss the ball to you, try to get below the ball, and return it to them 10 times.
Setting
This is important because it gets the ball ready to be hit over the net- this is another type of pass. You will take your hands and place them over your head and bend your elbows, the ball will be coming toward you at a high level above your head. You want your elbows out, and your hands in position to flick away from each other. You want every finger to be in contact with the ball. When the ball comes to you, your hands will catch it like it is catching an egg or water balloon, lightly so you don’t break them, and then flicking up with your fingers and hands flicking away, this will lead the ball back up but without spins or speed. This makes it easier for the next person to spike! Now practice this by doing 10 short hand sets to yourself, keep the ball going don’t let it fall to the ground, then do 10 taller sets without the ball dropping. It is hard to time your body positioning below the ball try each one and find which way you like better! With your buddy see if they can bump you the ball, then you can set it! Now see if you can bump to your buddy and they can set it! The next hit is the spike ! Everyone loves a good spike…
Spike
Spiking is really important but a tough skill to learn! This skill requires you to jump pretty high, and time your strike with your hand so that you hit the ball over the net. To spike the ball you will need momentum or a leaping start, you will only take 3-4 leaps towards the net, and jump up as the ball is being set to you, wind up your arm over and behind your head, hit it with the center of your hand, in a downward motion over the net. For this to work well for us you will not want to use a regulation volleyball net, you will want to have your net at about 4-5ft high depending on how tall you are to get these skills down.
Spikeball
Another GREAT summer game and one of my favorite sports is Spikeball. This is something I am really excited to introduce to LES hopefully next year! If you have a Spikeball net at home, AWESOME! Anyone can play and it’s hours of endless fun. If you do NOT have a net but have a hula hoop and a playground ball YOU CAN STILL PLAY! If you don’t have a hula hoop you can use a rope to make a circle using the rope as the rim or just draw a 3ft circle on the ground with chalk. Here’s some videos on how to play!
*Note for PK-2 these skills ARE advanced. Slow down each skill and make everything smaller. Use a beach ball, or balloon, work on hitting it to yourself and keeping control. Try each skill focusing on the underhand, set, and bump as the focus points. *
6th Grade Shout Out!
To our sixth graders I am so sad I didn’t get to coach you all in the Volleyball game this year. I am confident you would have been an incredible team and would have given teachers a tough match! I wish you all the best in your bright futures heading to middle school, I can’t wait for you all to visit and I hope you have an incredible summer!
NEXT WEEK IS VIRTUAL FIELD DAY!!!! STAY TUNED!
Have a healthy and active week!
Coach Sadie