Training Camp Party -7yr- Field Goal Training

For my son's 7th birthday we decided to have a football training camp party.  I drew up the invitations and sent them to a family friend to have them made.

The invites were a football on a green back drop that read Are You Ready For Some Football?  Join us for (Your Child's Name) 7th Birthday Training Camp, the date, Kick off is at (time) at (your last name) Stadium, RSVP to Coach (your name) by.  Also at the bottom of the invitation we put Show Your Spirit by wearing your favorite NFL Jersey or NFL team colors to training camp.

For decorations we hung a giant football field that said Game Day on the front door that I got from Oriental trading Co. We also hung footballs and pennants along our front porch and our back deck.  We decorated the tables with football field plastic table clothes from our local party store and put up a giant (Your Name) Stadium Sign in the front yard and a Tailgate Deck sign in the back. In our front yard we set up a blue tent as our check up station. When the kids arrived at the party they would check in with Coach Bill (my husband) and they would receive their players passes attached to a black lanyard.  I made the players passes on white card stock and put each guests name and picture on one side and a list of the training drills on the other and then laminated them and connected them to black lanyards that I bought from Oriental Trading Co. 

Once the kids had checked in, they were escorted by my son to the tailgating deck where each guest made a pennant with their name on it.  I bought the foam pennants and letters at our local craft store and had markers, football stickers, and stamps for them to use to decorate them while we wait for everyone to arrive. Once the kids were finished making their pennants Coach Bill arrived blew his whistle introduced himself and shouted What time is it?" and kids yelled "Game Time!" The kids then went down on the field (our front yard) for training camp.

Training camp ran like this: Warm up drills Knee up drills Quarterback and Field Goal training Cone drills Receiver traing and Team Relay Obstacle Coarse. For warm up drills Coach Bill put the kids through 5 minutes of stretchs push ups and jumping jack and then it was on to Knee up drills. For Knee Up drills we used small hoops I had purchased from Oriental Trading Co.  We split the kids in half and put half on one side of the hoops and the other half on the other side of the hoops.  The goal was to run while holding a football through the hoops and pass it the player on the other side who would run it back and so on.

After knee ups we moved on the Quarterback and Field Goal training. For quarterback training my husband used rope to hang one of the hoops in between 2 shephard hooks and the kids had to throw 3 footballs throw the target.  Once they had pass quarterback training they moved on to Field goal training.

For Field Goal training my husband had made a giant Orange (my son's favorite color) field goal post out of wood for the front yard.  Each kid took a turn trying to kick 3 footballs off a tee to score a field goal.

After field goal training we took a water break which the kids thought was fun because my husband had went and borrowed a huge Gatorade cooler from a local college. One of boys asked me if I would help him pour the leftover water on Coach Bill after camp.  After water break it was on to Cone Drills and Receiver training. 

For Cone drills we set the cones (which I bought from Oriental Trading Co) up in a giant square and had the kids run a drill were they had to run holding a football forward to the first cone shuffle step to left to the second cone run backwards to the third cone and shuffle step to the right which put them back where they started and then they passed off their football to the next player. This drill was hilarious and the kids loved it.

After Cones we moved on Receiver Training. For this drill we made a small square for the receiver to stand in and the goal was to catch 4 passes.  We had two parents throw passes from both sides of the receiver. So you had to catch a pass and turn and catch the next pass and turn and catch the next pass and so on.  My husband thinking this would be a little harder for the kids told the kids if they caught all 4 passes that Coach Bill would do 5 push ups. Well needless to say Coach Bill was calling for Assistant Coach reinforcements by the end of this drill because the kids caught everything. 

After receiver training we moved on to our last drill The Team Relay Obstacle Coarse.  For the obstacle coarse we set up 2 sets of knee drill hoops 2 giant crawl through tunnels my husband built 2 balance beams and 2 sets of zig zag cones.  So the goal of the obstacle coarse was to run holding a football through the knee drill hoops crawl through the tunnel walk a across the balance beam and then run zig zagging through the cones and pass the football to the next player on your team.  This was the hit of the party. I'm pretty sure they ran it about 10 times.  We even tried to make it harder by putting parents through out the coarse to knock the football out of their hands for a fumble (which meant you had to go back and start over.) The kids loved it. 

After camp we all headed back up to the Tailgating Deck for Hot dogs chips fruit mac and cheese Gatorade and cake.  My sister made the cake in the shape of a football field. It was really cute. As the kids left we handed out training camp reward bags filled with dollar store footballs football tattoes and stickers Gatorade their pennants and training camp metals all of which (except the Gatorade) I bought at Oriental Trading Co. 

The kids had a blast and are still talking about the party today.  The only thing that we didn't do that I would recommend is taking a Team Training Camp Picture.  It was on the check list but we forgot because the kids ran through the obstacle coarse so many time.  "