Building understanding

Basketball (Part 1)

Physical development

﻿Hi, everyone. My name is Alistair, and today, we're going to learn how to play basketball. For this lesson, you will need, a basketball, a softball. Tinfoil and bubble wrap will help add a sensory element to the activities. We'll need some targets and a chair. If you haven't got these items, substitute items from around your house will be absolutely fine. Please pause whilst you get things ready. Let's get ready. Find a quiet, clear space to work, away from distractions, ensure that the area is safe and that your child is feeling fit and well to take part in the lesson. Check that you're wearing the right clothes for sports and physical activity. I'd really encourage your child to be as independent as possible with this. Make sure your resources are nearby. Use a familiar reference to prepare the learner that the activity is going to start. This could be a symbol, a sound, or even a song. Press pause whilst you get things ready. It's time to look, listen, and learn. First, we need to get our muscles ready for exercise and our basketball, so, I've made a little circuit around. You can do this in a small space in your living room in your house. You might want to do it in the garden, so, whatever works best for you and your child. So, I've got some different things on the floor, I want to move in and around. So, I have got some different coloured cards. I've chosen some bright colours, so that will help our young people with visual impairments. They're quite large, bright colours, that will really stand out for them, as they're moving inside and outside of those different markers. I've got a chair there. And, I've got one of my cushions. You can use any objects that you want, and you have ready to hand at home. So, I'm going to move in and out of those different markers. and the first of all, I'm just going to walk. So inside and outside, so walkin' inside and outside of the card, changing directions around the cushion, around my chair, just walkin' at a slow pace. You might want to do this for a couple of minutes, just to get started, and then, you can start to introduce a jog into there. So, we can start to move a bit more quickly and see if we can start to get our heart rate going. So I'm going to jog inside and outside of my cushion and my chair and my pieces of colour card on the floor, and then, finally, we're going to introduce some basketball-specific movements into our warm-up. So, when we say "Crouch," we're going to go low on the floor, imagine we're bouncing the basketball, and we're going to go inside and outside, so that's going to be crouch. And then, when we say, "Shoot," we're going to imagine that we're doing a jump shot in basketball, so we're going to crouch down, jump up, and shoot, and we can do that as we're movin' in and out of our spaces. So, I'm going to walk around, inside and outside, and "crouch," so down low, nice and low, inside and outside. Imagine I'm bouncing my basketball around the chair, and I'm going to start to jog. So, in and out of those different spaces. Again, changing direction. And then I'll say, "Shoot," so crouch low, jump, and around we go. And I will say, "Shoot," again. So down low, jump, inside and outside, and "Crouch," so nice and low, imagine I'm bouncing that basketball all the way around. You might want to do that for about five minutes, just to have a really good warm-up, get that heart rate going. We've had different levels of movement there, so we've had really low movements when we're crouching down, and we've had higher movements where we're upright, and we're stretching, and we are jumping. So, a really good warm-up. I can feel my heart is beating faster. I'm starting to feel hot. My muscles are ready for some basketball. Pause the video to complete your task. For our next activity, we're going to concentrate on moving in different directions. As with all of our sessions in physical development, we're lookin' at fundamental movements and trying to make them sport specific. So, in a game like basketball, we'd be moving around from side-to-side in different directions really quickly, and we'll try and mirror that with this activity. So, I have got four different stations on the floor here. I've got some gold card. I've got a pink piece of card. I've got a yellow piece of card, and I've got a pink, fluffy cushion at the back there. And, the idea being, is I'm going to place myself in the middle, and then I will shout out a direction. So I'll say the yellow card, and I'll run, and I'll touch the yellow card, and then come back to the middle as fast as I can. Or I could say, pink cushion. I go, touch the pink cushion, and back to the middle, and that would mirror the kind of movements that we would have in a basketball game there. So, I'm starting in the middle, and first one is, gold card, so forward, touch the card, back we come. And, pink card, touch pink card, back into the middle, and pink cushion, touch the cushion, back into the middle, and yellow card, touch the yellow card, and come back to the middle. You can shout out those different directions. You could use different things that might be really motivating for your child on each different station. If you are doing some of our numeracy sessions with National Oak Academy, it's a great opportunity to practise those shapes there, so have a play around with that. If your child is a wheelchair user, absolutely can do this activity, just make sure there's enough space, and they can go from station to station, and the card is at a height that they can touch, that's freely available to them. To further extend that last activity, I've placed a ball on each station. We're still wanting to concentrate on the movement in different directions, but what I want this time is for your child to pass the ball to you. Now, they might explore different ways in which they can do this. They might kick the ball, and they might throw underarm. They might throw overarm. We really want them to explore different ways, be really creative in terms of how they transport the ball from the station to you. We'll refine those skills later in our basketball unit, but again, just, in addition to the last activity that we're starting to introduce those basketball-specific skills, in particular, thinkin' about practising . So, I'm in the middle again, so again, on my toes. You could make this more difficult, if you wanted, by starting off from a crouching position, so you have to get up and then move, so, whatever works best for you and your child. So, I'm on my toes and ready, and the first one I'm going to go to is my yellow card. So over to the yellow card, get the ball, and I've passed the ball there. Back to the middle, and I come to my gold card, so come over, up we go, and pass, and the ball's gone there. So, back to the middle, and I'm ready, and I'm going to come over to my pink card. I might kick the ball from there. And, final one, back to the middle, I'm ready, I'm on my toes, and I come back to the pink cushion. I've got the ball there and a big throw overarm, so, explore those different ways in which we can pass the basketball and really fast movements in different directions in between those stations. Great work. Pause the video to complete your task. The next skill we're going to look at in basketball is how we dribble with the ball. This is really quite a difficult concept, so, a really good starting point here is, if we have the ball, and just with your child, throw the ball up, let the ball bounce, and see if they can catch it again. So, we throw the ball up, let the ball bounce, and see if they can catch it again. That might take quite awhile for them to practise to do that, which is absolutely fine, to develop and acquire that skill. Once they feel a bit more confident with that, we can see if we can start to add some movement to that as well. So, I'm going to walk across from my yellow card all the way to the pink card, and I'm going to throw the ball up, let the ball bounce, walk a bit further, throw the ball up, let the ball bounce, and that's starting to get that idea of how we dribble with the basketball. They might have some different ideas and ways, which is fine. So, you could roll the ball along the floor, run and pick it up. You could roll it back the other way, and then come and pick it up. We're getting the idea of that movement and travelling with the ball. Have a real good play around with that, and practise those skills for quite a long time, and have your child be really confident in usin' those. Once they start to feel really confident, we can start to follow the traditional way of dribbling a basketball. So, I have the ball there, I bounce the ball down, come forward, and I bounce the ball down, and I'm starting to move more quickly with the ball. So, watch that again. So, I bounce the ball down, bounce the ball down, and there I am, and I'm starting to dribble with my basketball. It's great skills there. You can take that a step further and go inside and outside of the pieces of card. You could start to speed those movements up. So, have a real good go at dribbling with the basketball. In our next session, we're going to start to look at how we sequence those movements together, and we'll do some passing as well. So, enjoy yourself, trying to dribble with the basketball. You can change the ball around here, so, if your child has a sensory preference, you can make that more tactile by maybe wrappin' it in tinfoil or bubble wrap, will have a really nice feel to it there. You can use different colours, whatever your child finds motivating, but again, going from that starting point of throwing the ball up, lettin' it bounce, all the way through to seeing if we can dribble inside and outside of our card. If your child is a wheelchair user or has challenges around their mobility, we can practise our basketball dribbling in a seated position. So, a really good place to start is, if we throw the ball up, bounce, and back into our hand. That might take a lot of practise there, so again, ball goes up, bounce, and back into our hands. We've become a bit more confident, we can start to try that to the side, so bounce into our hands and to the other side and bounce into our hands. We can then start to see if we can bounce the ball a bit more fluidly, and it comes back into our hands. And, if your child becomes really confident there, they can start to think about moving in their wheelchair and dribbling at the same time, maybe with one hand. So, good luck with practicin' your dribbling skills. Pause the video to complete your task. We can make the lesson easier by exploring basketball through sensory activities. For example, to cover the ball in different materials. We can focus on fewer skills and movements and progress at a pace most appropriate to your child. To make it harder, we can look at masterclass sessions and explore top tips from elite athletes. We can begin to link movements and skills together to create a sequence. More ideas, ask a parent or carer to help you search for and watch basketball-specific content online. You could find your nearest basketball court or net and practise your skills. All of our activities can be adapted using the STEP principle. That's looking at the space, the task, the equipment we use, and how people help us. For example, a balloon with beads in can support visually impaired learners. We can use bigger, brighter resources. We could also adapt the space and activities to suit wheelchair users. For example, makin' sure there's a large enough space for the wheelchair in the dribbling activity, so we can manoeuvre in and out of the different markers. Brilliant basketball, everyone. Bye, and I'll see you next time. Share your work with Oak National. If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational with the #LearnwithOak. We'd love to see your brilliant basketball.

Basketball (Part 1)

Basketball (Part 1)

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

Lesson slides

Lesson details

Key learning points

Equipment

Content guidance

Supervision

Licence

Lesson video

Worksheet