Your First Tee Ball Practice: A Minute by Minute Plan That Actually Works

By First Whistle Staff | 2026-06-06

Tee ball is the youngest coaching job in sports, which means your real opponents are attention spans and untied shoelaces. The fix is structure: short blocks, constant movement, and one skill per block. Here is a full hour, minute by minute, that has survived actual five year olds.

Minute 0 to 8: names and glove tag

Circle up, say your name, learn theirs. Then play glove tag: every kid wears a glove, one kid is it, and you tag people by touching them with your glove. Switch the tagger every thirty seconds so nobody melts down.

This sounds like filler. It is not. Kids are running, wearing their gloves, and learning that practice is fun, all before you have taught a single baseball thing. The coach who starts with standing in lines loses the group by minute six and never gets it back.

Minute 8 to 20: turn, step, throw

Teaching throwing to this age is three words. Turn your body sideways so your glove shoulder points at the target. Step toward the target with your front foot. Throw.

Say it as a chant: "turn, step, throw." Pair the kids up close together, maybe fifteen feet, with a coach or parent feeding balls back to whoever loses one (everyone). Walk the line and fix one thing per kid, no more. A five year old can absorb exactly one correction at a time.

Most throws will be terrible. You are not building accuracy today, you are building the habit of the feet moving first.

Minute 20 to 32: alligator grounders

Fielding a grounder is two hands coming together like an alligator's mouth: glove on the ground as the bottom jaw, bare hand snapping down on top as the ball arrives. Tell them the alligator part. They will never forget it.

Roll slow grounders from ten feet. Every kid in an athletic crouch, glove touching the dirt before the ball gets there. The single biggest fix at this age is the glove starting low; little kids lift the glove early and the ball rolls under it every time. "Start the alligator on the ground" solves most of it.

Minute 32 to 46: tee stations

Now the part they all came for. Set up two or three tees spread far apart, facing away from each other, with a parent at each one. Three or four kids per tee, five swings each, then rotate kids between stations.

Two coaching points only. Hands together at the bottom of the bat, and hit the ball, not the tee. Resist the urge to rebuild anyone's swing today. Contact and confidence are the whole curriculum.

If you have a fourth station, make it a throwing or grounder repeat. Small groups moving every few minutes is the entire secret of tee ball practice design.

Minute 46 to 56: the base running relay

Split the team in half, one group at home plate, one at second base. On go, the first kid in each line runs all the way around the bases and tags the next kid in line. First team done wins, and then you immediately run it again because they will demand it.

Watch for two things: touching every base, and turning the right direction out of the box. You will see at least one kid head toward third base. Laugh, fix it, move on. This game teaches the diamond better than any walkthrough.

Minute 56 to 60: the huddle

Bring them in, take a knee, and keep it under a minute. Name two things they did well, by skill not by kid: "Our alligators were great today, and I saw a lot of good turn, step, throw." Then a cheer on three, and send them to their parents tired and happy.

That huddle is your culture. Same ending every practice, all season.

Want the whole season planned out?

This was practice one. Our Youth Baseball Practice Plan Pack gives you 12 complete practices across tee ball, coach pitch, and kid pitch, every one timed to the minute like this, plus a guide to all nine positions for when your league makes you assign them. Print it, put it on the clipboard, and spend your energy on the kids instead of the plan.