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If you just got handed a bucket of scuffed balls and a batting tee because nobody else raised their hand — welcome. You’re going to be fine. Tee-ball means roughly four- to seven-year-olds, and the job is simpler than it looks: keep every kid moving, keep the reps short and frequent, and end before they’re done having fun.
This plan assumes 8–12 players, one or two parent helpers, and a corner of a field with a backstop or fence if you’re lucky. Print it, fold it, stick it in the ball bucket.
The three rules of tee-ball practice
- Stations, not lines. A line of six kids waiting to hit is five kids digging in the dirt with their gloves. Split into small groups and run two or three things at once.
- Talk for 20 seconds, max. Show them instead. At this age they learn by copying, and a four-year-old’s attention span for a lecture is about one sentence long.
- Nothing lasts longer than about 10 minutes. When the wiggles start, you switch — not when the drill is “done.”
Equipment list
- Two or three batting tees — one per hitting station
- A dozen soft training balls or wiffle balls, plus a handful of real tee-balls
- One bat per hitting station, plus a spare — check your league’s bat rules before buying anything
- A batting helmet for every kid who’s hitting
- 12 disc cones
- A set of throw-down bases (four cones works in a pinch)
- Every kid brings their own glove and a labeled water bottle
The plan
0:00–0:05 — Arrival: partner toss (5 min)
Set out a row of cones about ten big steps apart in pairs. As kids arrive, pair them up with a soft ball: stand at your cones, toss gently to your partner. This is not wasted time — it gets latecomers in without restarting anything, and it lets you count heads, tie shoes, and find the one glove that’s on the wrong hand. When everyone’s there, gather them in.
0:05–0:12 — Warm-up: Freeze (7 min)
Mark a grid with four cones, everybody running anywhere inside it. On the whistle, they freeze in the athletic ready position: feet wide, knees bent, hands out in front like they’re about to catch a water balloon. Wrong position? No punishment — just show them again and restart. Add skipping and side-shuffling rounds once they’ve got it. What it teaches: the ready position, which is the start of every fielding play they’ll ever make.
0:12–0:24 — Throwing progression (12 min)
Same partners from arrival, soft balls, starting close. Three steps: (1) Both knees down, just the arm — flick the ball to your partner from five feet. (2) Stand up, sideways: point your glove shoulder at your partner, step toward them, throw over the top. (3) Play real catch and count consecutive catches as a team — can the whole group get to ten total? Back up a step each time it’s going well. Coaching cue for the whole station: “step, point, throw.” At this age a throw that arrives anywhere near a partner is a win. Say so.
0:24–0:27 — Water break (3 min)
One cone per kid at the water spot. They go to their cone, drink, stay there. Three minutes is long enough to drink, short enough that nobody starts a dirt excavation project.
0:27–0:41 — Hitting off the tee: stations (14 min)
This is why you wanted three tees. Split into groups of three or four: Station 1 hits off the tee toward a fence or net, helmet on, one hitter and the rest fielding the balls. Station 2 hits wiffle balls off a tee into open grass — no chasing required. Station 3 plays catch or runs the Freeze game with a parent helper. Rotate every four to five minutes, whistle, everyone moves. Hitting cues, one at a time: “feet wide, like your freeze position” — “eyes on the ball, not the field” — “swing hard.” That’s the whole lesson. And teach the one safety rule that matters from day one: drop the bat, don’t fling it.
0:41–0:50 — Fielding basics: alligator hands (9 min)
Everyone spreads out facing you, gloves on. Roll ground balls from ten feet — rolled, not hit, at this age. The cue they’ll remember: the glove goes on the ground like an alligator’s bottom jaw, and the throwing hand snaps down on top like the top jaw. Alligator eats the ball. Start with rollers straight at them, then a step to each side. Finish with two minutes of “ready, alligator, throw” — field it, then toss to a parent helper holding a bucket. What it teaches: getting the glove down early, which is ninety percent of youth fielding.
0:50–0:58 — Base-running game: beat the throw (8 min)
Throw-down bases in a small diamond. One kid hits a wiffle ball off the tee, drops the bat (see above), and runs the bases while everyone else fields the ball and relays it around the diamond — first to second to third to home. Runner scores a point if they beat the ball home; defense scores if the ball wins. Everybody hits once, count up the points, play again if the noise level says go. What it teaches: running through first, touching every base, and throwing to a teammate under happy pressure. It also burns off whatever energy is left, which is a gift to their parents.
0:58–1:00 — Cool-down and homework (2 min)
Circle up, one knee, 60 seconds. One specific praise per kid if you can manage it — “you got your alligator hands down every single time” beats “good job” every time. Then homework, because kids this age love homework: ten catches with a parent before dinner. Team cheer, done, on time. Ending on time is how you get parents to trust you with their Tuesdays.
First time coaching baseball? Read this
You do not need to have played college ball to run a great tee-ball practice — you need a whistle, a plan, and a loud praise voice. Recruit a parent helper for every station, because one adult cannot run three tees. Keep your instructions to a sentence each and your demonstrations short. Praise the effort by name, out loud, constantly. And when a kid swings at the tee itself, misses the ball entirely, or runs to third instead of first — that’s not a problem to fix, that’s tee-ball. Smile, reset, go again.
When it goes sideways
Someone will cry. Someone will sit down in the outfield and make a dirt castle. Two kids will fight over whose turn it is at the tee with the ferocity of a contract negotiation. It’s all normal. Have a parent helper handle the shoe-tying and tear-wiping so the stations stay alive, and remember the real goal of tee-ball: every kid wants to come back next week. If they leave the field dusty and asking when practice is, you nailed it.