I had a 4 year old t-ball team to coach and was having a real hard time teaching them basic batting skills.
I had trouble with:
- Getting the kids into the batters box,
- Putting their feet in the correct stance,
- Putting the bat on their shoulder and not on my head,
- Getting them to hit the ball and not the tee.
With the help of our other coach, we created a mat from astro turf that had a left and right handed box painted on it as well as home plate and foot prints in both boxes for the kids to place their feet.
We would then ask one of the players to come over, place their feet in the marked spots, look at the black mark I drew on the ball and said “I want you to look at the black dot, count 1-2-3 then swing.”
In just the second practice they were ALL hitting the ball. At our first game they hit much better than the team we were playing against and the parents were extremely happy!