How to Teach Sport Stacking

As I hope you know – Sport Stacking – is one of the funnest* sports and activities that you can do with kids. It is a sport that kids of all ages and athletic abilities can do. When I was a full time children’s pastor, I discovered this amazing sport and incorporated into our children’s ministry and it became not only a magnet for kids, but a super relational tool for simply playing with and interacting with the kids in my church. Parents also found it to be a fun way to engage with their kids in a fun activity that they could do with children of any age – and of course, kids enjoyed beating their parents at a fun sport.

awanagameguys-kids

Me and My Game Guys hangin’ with kids

Now, Sport Stacking has become an official part of the Awana Game Time. I launched it last week with a series of games using the Jumbo Cups. My goal there was a fast, easy introduction that would get the kids excited about the sport and the concept of stacking around the Awana Circle.

But tonight, it was time to introduce them to the actual sport, and provide some training the stacking techniques.

The Key is to keep the training short, fun and get to playing as soon as possible!

But I do not recommend skipping the training. As the saying goes, “its hard to teach an old dog new tricks.” Right? It is harder to re-teach the correct way to stack, than it is to get kids off to a good start right at the beginning!

I filmed the evening and put together a video with on screen TIPS through out the video to help others see how I do it, some of the things I dealt with live – as well as see the practice game we used to help the clubbers get familiar with the cups before actually competing. (The Practice Game is called “Up, Down, Stack Around” and is found on page 10 of the Awana Sport Stacking Game Book.)

Here is the video, you will see both Sparks and TnT Training, and the differences between them. I hope it is a help to others teaching Sport Stacking, whether you have an Awana Club or not!

We did do several other games, but I’ll highlight those in a future video. You can download my Awana Game Time ‘Game Plans’ weekly in my Awana Game Time Facebook Group, via PDFs if you are a Game Time leader. Just look under Files.

*funnest may not be a word, but kids know what it means!

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