I coach two teams - 1st&2nd and 3rd&4th basketball and dont have much coach time to practice since most of the sports outfit takes care of the drills except for 15-20 min before game time.

since i dont have much coaching time and my teams have small and fast kids, I am focusing on fast breaks and rebounding (the sports outfit takes care of other drills). The main thing I have been teaching is boxing out and not letting taller kids into the danger zone. the first couple of games we had some tall teams grab rebounds because they were just settling under the basket. With just a little bit of focus on rebounding and keeping the kids out of danger zone we have lowered scores against us and have had great success with fastbreaks of defensive rebounding.

my question is how assertive can the kids be to keep the kids out of danger zone? are there any videos online that kids can look at to learn best techniques for keeping offensive players out? is there a page describing boxing out and keeping others out of danger zone? i saw a lot on boxing out, but little on techniques to keep others out of the zone.

i mostly use my knowledge from playing in europe and of course your great site, but with coaching soccer in addition to these teams i have less and less time to research what works for kids this age.

This is a tough age group .... just have them play tough and let them enjoy the game... its hard for them to grasp some skills at the younger ages... 4th graders, maybe a little bit... but younger than that... its more about learning skills and having FUN playing the game.

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/basketballdrills.html#footworkdrills

I agree that I wouldn't get too caught up in drilling them to fight for rebounding position. You could spend the entire practice trying to get them to do what you want and it still won't work.

I would spent tons of time on footwork (pivots), various dribbling drills, and athletic development (balance, spatial awareness, agility, etc, etc).

In reality, I don't think 1st and 2nd graders should even be playing basketball. There are too young and better off playing soccer, flag football, tag, swimming, gymnastics, and martial arts at a young age like that. They should use really low baskets, small basketballs, and if they do player games, play 3on3. So just try to help them develop skills, have fun, and develop into well rounded athletes. That is the best thing you can do for this young group of kids. This will really help them in the long run.