Pickleball First Steps

Teaching Pickleball to Juniors

Pickleball First Steps, developed by Lu Kandt and Mary Burns, is a comprehensive curriculum to teach the sport of pickleball to young people in grades 4 through 8 (ages 8-14). It is for use by physical education teachers and pickleball instructors teaching in a variety of settings. If you are a physical education teacher, you’ll find Pickleball First Steps easy to incorporate into your curriculum, and if you are a pickleball instructor, Pickleball First Steps will help you adapt your teaching methods to be developmentally appropriate for children.

Pickleball First Steps is a 10-lesson curriculum that schools and clubs can use to introduce, grow, and sustain the sport of pickleball to young people. Pickleball First Steps is endorsed and used by the International Pickleball Teaching Professional Association.

The lesson plans are based on learning the skills of pickleball starting from the “net” back. Doing so allows for immediate student engagement and success. The lessons are in sequential order which allows each instructor the liberty of moving at the pace dictated by his or her students. If a lesson is completed and class time allows for more instruction, the start of the next lesson can be implemented.

Pickleball First Steps for grades 4 through 8 is available as an ebook and can be downloaded for FREE here.

If you are a physical educator and have not played pickleball, find a place to play so you are familiar with the sport. It will help you be a better teacher of the sport. If you are a pickleball instructor who has played lots of pickleball, you will appreciate the experience of our authors who are veteran physical education teachers and highly skilled pickleball players in how they introduce the sport to young people.