It is always a challenge to come up with [tag]tee ball practice drills[/tag]. These soon to be [tag]baseball[/tag] players need a lot of detailed explanations and [tag]baseball drills[/tag] to provide them the background they need.
Before every [tag]baseball practice[/tag] I make sure the kids are lined up in a row with an arms length distance between one another. All of the kids including the three baseball coaches are performing stretching of arms, legs, back, wrists and fingers (as a team we count to five during each stretch). After stretching we run a light jog from home plate to center field and back. Even though the kids are 5-6 years old, they seem to enjoy the stretching and jogging.
90 percent of the kids on the [tag]t-ball[/tag] team could not catch with their glove during the first practice. Nearly all of them shy away when the ball was thrown directly at them.
In order to build their confidence and avoid injury, I decided to use tennis balls for playing catch. I think it worked and it taught them to use both hands (tennis ball tends to bounce out of the glove compared to a t-ball).
In the beginning of this throwing/catching [tag]tee ball drill[/tag], I made the kids catch without their glove (forcing them to use both hands) and eventually we graduated to using gloves.