Stick Handling Skills - Floor Hockey

Stick Handling Skills – Floor Hockey

K-2 explored ways to control the ball using hockey sticks with foam blades to ensure safety. They learned to stick handle the yarn ball through the gym while using both sides of the hockey stick. During the second week they learned how to score the ball into the net. They learned about the face of their hockey stick.  They imagined drawing a smiley face on the blade and pointing the eyes in the direction they wanted the ball to go.

Teacher Tip: I use the small dense yarn balls since they move slow but are still dense enough to roll. This gives the students better control. I love the foam hockey sticks for the little ones since it is hard for them to remember to keep the stick down low. This way you don’t have any injuries!

Students in 3-5 expanded on the skills they learned during previous years. These students used plastic hockey sticks and worked on keeping their blades below their waist to ensure safety.

Teacher Tip: I use the safety rule “HIGH STICKS are MY STICKS.” If a student knows they raised their stick above the hip they bring me their stick and check out for one minute.  If I see a high stick and they do not check out then I ask them to check out to reflect for 2 minutes. I find that the students are very honest and mostly they move themselves to the reflection zone when needed.

They began with basic stick handling and progressed to controlling the ball while maneuvering through and around various obstacles in the gym. They focused on components such as: grip, posture, eyes, using both sides of the stick and letting the ball lead the way.

Teacher Tip: I set up spots, triangle cones and sets of three dome cones.

Spots: Count the number of times you can control the ball across a spot

Triangle Cones: Count the number of u-turns you can make around triangle cones

Dome Cones: Count the number of times you can Zig-zag through a set of dome cones

I have three different color hockey sticks so each color is assigned a task and then we switch.

The students then learned how to control the ball while avoiding defenders who were trying to steal their ball. When a defender got their ball and controlled it for at least three taps that person then became a defender. If the defender hit the ball out of bounds the ball went back to the original owner. The students discussed strategies such as turning their back to the defender, moving to open space, keeping the ball moving at all times and looking up while dribbling.

On the second week students moved to stations. They worked on dribbling the ball then shooting it into the net and two of the stations. One stations was set for students to practice passing. The fourth station was a focus of cardio stepping and upper body strength with stretch bands. 

We will move on to scooter hockey to help students learn about position players and strategies.