Red Light, Green Light Reimagined

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I have used red light, green light as a dribbling activity on occasion, but have never been happy with it except for use with U6 players. I felt it was too static and didn't have many elements of the game that would challenge the kids. I have modified it by adding a goal at the end so that the U6/8 players are encouraged to shoot from longer distances, hence the name Red Light, Green Light, Goal!!!

It worked reasonably well, but was not nearly as fun or intense as "Don't Let the Bird Bite you in the Bootie" which is an absolute blast and works well for even large groups of players. Having said that, I was working with a large group last night where the coach introduced colors other than red and green. He used the colors to denote specific moves that the players would have to perform instead of dribbling in a straight line. So, for example, Orange was a step over and Blue was a scissors move. This modification made the game harder and tied in more closely to the prior dribbling activities. 

I really liked it, but I still felt it was static, especially when a large group had some players sitting out because others hadn't reached the end line yet. One of the moves the players had been working on were turns with inside foot, outside foot and sole. So I thought it would be fun if we added Black which caused them to turn in the other direction. it worked well at first, but we could only call out Black once because players wouldn't turn back around and go in their original direction because they were confused. So what we did was to make the game continuous. Instead of players stopping when they hit the end line, they turned around and went back in the other direction. Here are some of the effects of this change: 
  • the players were running at each other
  • you could get more repetitions of a specific move 
  • the game became continuous and could last for several minutes. 
Bottom line? We took a relatively static activity that didn't give the kids the reps we were looking for and transformed it into something that looks more like a soccer game and is more interesting for the kids as well. Try it. Let me know what you think. I'd love to hear what modifications you have made. 

Image 1: Red Light, Green Light, Black Light- Players dribble back and forth and respond to commands from the coach for moves. Once they reach and endline, they turn around and go in the opposite direction. 

Image 2: Red Light, Green Light Goal- Players start at one end of the grid and dribble on the coach's green light command. They stop on the red light command. When they get to a spot where they think they can score, they take a shot on a green light command. If a player misses the goal, s/he continues until the goal is scored. Set up a second goal at the other end to decrease transition time for repeating the activity.



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