“Everyone knows that children should play,
but they do not know that it is important what they are playing.”

Handball in kindergartens is conceived as a type of universal sports school whose task is to create a base of children for the next step of involvement in mini-handball. The idea is to work with children from the age of four or five until they go to elementary school. At this age, free play and the development of basic motor skills are crucial for the normal growth and development of children and serve as the basis for learning the elements of handball.
40% of the time content is conducted as an incentive for the development of general motor skills and abilities, while 60% of the content is of a handball character. As today’s children do not have the habit of movement and free play outdoors like previous generations, the programs of universal sports schools in which learning elements of gymnastics, athletics, rhythmicity, martial arts, object manipulation, rackets, bats, etc. are taught are necessary as compensation for the development of what we have lost to the modern way of life.
The implementation of training with children of this age is very demanding and requires a full understanding of their biological needs, from motor skills, but also limitations to emotional requirements.
We have witnessed the statements of many coaches that “today’s children are not like they used to be”. Because of that, and it is a matter of changing the way of life of the people of Western civilization, these statements are true. This forces us to change our attitudes and adapt to the needs of the children we train.

“If they are bored, they start playing something else,
if their feelings are hurt, they start crying.”

A coach who works with children must know that they do not forgive misunderstanding their needs.
The younger Zvonko is, the more pronounced his emotional side is. Therefore, he makes all decisions about what he finds interesting, what he likes, or what he finds boring based solely on how he feels while performing a certain activity.
His understanding of the future benefits of what he is currently doing is not possible. Such thinking is too abstract for him.
Therefore, work methods are very important. What is the primary goal at this age is an emotional experience. If we succeed in bringing Zvonko’s enthusiasm for handball to the highest level, we have created a very good chance that he will stay in our sport when he enrolls in a nearby primary school after kindergarten.

“The game is a basic training tool in working with children.”

How to achieve the desired emotional state? Zvonko’s only job is playing. He directs all his energy exclusively into it, looking for interest in everything that surrounds him, if it does not serve as his playground. At this age, through play, he satisfies one of the basic needs of life – the need for movement, which allows his body and mind to grow and develop normally. In addition to the development of motor skills, Zvonko’s cognitive skills are developed through movement and play. It has been proven that the full development of intelligence is not possible without a sufficient amount of play in childhood.
Therefore, all content is oriented towards its primary purpose – the game. Although a large number of pedagogues and psychologists are moving forward with modern learning methods and the modernization of educational systems, their application to sports is often still very outdated. The fact that at the faculties for the training of physical and health education teachers, the methodology program in pre-school, elementary school, high school, and higher education according to the postulates of military academies is still being implemented speaks volumes about this.
The type, column, line, or polygons are the basis of the programming of obedient soldiers and should be left for places where such a form of work and discipline is needed and fulfills its purpose. If one wants to encourage the development of creativity, cognitive abilities, and socialization with other children, it is necessary to create content that encourages such development.
When it comes to play, it is important to know that the use of games by preschool children is significantly different from the use of games in primary school age.

“A game is not a competition in which a child is defeated.”

Somewhere around the age of seven, most children are emotionally mature enough to accept defeat in an emotionally balanced way. For this reason, it is extremely important when working with Zvonka while he is in kindergarten to use games in which he does not compete with other children, i.e. do not conduct mutual competitions.
At this age, competition in children stimulates an excessive desire to win, and at the same time, for most, defeat creates excessive disappointment.
Even small “defeats” in which Zvonko wants to play a game with a certain ball, and another child takes that ball, even though there are enough balls for all the children, make Zvonko cry inconsolably.
The reaction in games in which the score is counted or the game is played until some other form of victory and defeat is usually just as violent, and our goal at training sessions is not to comfort Zvonko while he is crying but to create a relaxed and happy atmosphere.

“The ability to cooperate with others is not genetic,
it is something that we (learn) or don’t (learn).”

An important task of the game at this age is to encourage cooperation. The goal of the examples of games that we will list is for Zvonko to learn to cooperate in a group or collectively. Given that handball is a team sport and not only made up of teammates but also of a team of people who lead the team and take care of it, it is important to make him aware of how to function in a group.

“Parents tell them bedtime stories,
and our goal is for the child to be the main character of the story.”

Also, when we talk about the tasks we want to carry out with Zvonko, we must remember that his life is one big story. This is how we should set the motor tasks that we want to perform. Not knowing that he is exercising, Zvonko exercises best.
Our goal is to implement known or create new games that meet the criteria from the outline:

, and we will describe each game so that it is clear:

WHY?

, i.e. what goals do we want to achieve by playing that game?

HOW?

, i.e. how the coach explains the game, what is the story in which Zvonko is the main character, and how the game is played.

WHAT?

, i.e. what Zvonko does while playing.