Practice! Are we talking about practice?

[eckj]

I'm just interested in what others do for practice:
a) duration
b) how many days a week?
c) anything special you do?

At the HS we practice twice a week for two hours and play packets.
At the MS we practice once a week for two hours. There is a lesson and quiz weekly. We then play packets.

I am just trying to see what others do and maybe change it up!

[trbenedict]

For HS, we split up into varsity and junior varsity groups and practice during school lunch by playing packets (~1 hour, 1 day a week).

For MS, we practice during lunch for about an hour once a week, usually by playing packets.

When we play packets, especially in the middle school where we have a bigger room, we usually do some kind of individual "eight and out" format (once you get 8 tossups over the course of 40 questions/2 packets, you're out) to make sure it's an enjoyable experience for everyone. We'll also sometimes do little games here and there to spice things up (when you buzz in, you have to designate someone else to answer, try to guess the answerlines to all three bonus parts after hearing the leadin, etc.).

This year, I've started offering some after-school booster sessions as well for players who want to come extra...those are mixed, HS and MS, and usually include some combination of teaching content, independent study, and playing questions. That's about once a week for two hours.

[18zhangandrew]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI

Just once a week for Jerome

[rmaupin]

90 minutes twice a week at Little Miami. When league play starts, we substitute our league matches for one of our practices. During each practice, we do 2 full OAC matches.

[jrbellas]

Twice a week at the HS. Mondays and Thursdays, from 3 to 4. Sometimes we have team members teach mini-topics like Stuart Monarchs, Elements, or the Lake Poets. Usually we just read packets. I've tried quizzes with them but they generally don't study.

I used to go an hour and a half, but by the end of the day their attention span is so shot, we're not very productive. So when I shortened it to an hour (and made candy and soda available) they seemed to perk up.

Middle school is once a week for an hour. Mostly I teach for 30 minutes, then read packets for 30.

[mazinomer]

Practice is every Wednesday at lunch. Our coach just reads packets – not particularly intense, but effective for our team.

[Get Lynned]

Practice is every Wednesday at lunch. Our coach just reads packets – not particularly intense, but effective for our team.

Welcome to the forum!

[mazinomer]

Practice is every Wednesday at lunch. Our coach just reads packets – not particularly intense, but effective for our team.

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks! Glad I discovered this forum.

[Get Lynned]

We did our practices on Thursdays, 7-830pm. This always worked well because everyone on our team played sports in addition to quiz bowl, and our rare games on Thursday often finished by 7pm.

I'm somewhat surprised by how popular in-school practices must be. I personally wouldn't think we could get through enough material and get enough things read to our liking for the ~50 minute window during lunch period. I also feel that gap between the first and second half of the school day is pretty important, IMO. Time to shoot some hoops, socialize at the lunch table, read up on your Pushkin... etc.

We would practice the first 45 minutes among the whole roster (thank you, 16 port Zeecraft dinosaur). I found this phase of practice to be both beneficial and detrimental to younger players. I know I would enjoy doing some batting practice with Francisco Lindor, and the freshmen when we were seniors had the same view about us. At the same time, "everyone together" practices proved to be somewhat problematic. To arrange a simultaneous practice between three/four-year A team starters and the ducklings of the program, especially early in the school year during the first practices, was an unintended call for annihilation in every metaphoric sense possible. Read the first twenty tossups on an IS-set in practice, your distribution of scoring is going to be 90% returning/rising players; in an attempt to save face, often times a few freshmen would try and anticipate the tossup just based on the read pronoun alone (e.g. "this author" BUZZ 'Hemingway?') and annoy the rest of the team in the process with the constant guessing and interruption of practice-- now that was something sure to upset me. Forty-five minutes later, we enjoy some donuts and pop. We then proceed to the second half of practice, where we split the A team up from the younger players.

Splitting up, and practicing as squads (as in, the A team practicing altogether) can be an effective practicing tool. It really does help build camaraderie, but also an enhanced team chemistry. Anyone who read for us would know that I'm a pretty defined person in my voice and tone, and that's in direct contrast with the soft-spoken and mild-mannered Brandon. Getting to practice together and work on bonuses as a squad, during practice time, probably earned us hundreds of points in bonuses my senior year as Brandon and I's line of communication became stronger thanks to us practicing the delivery of answers across format.



In terms of anything special: like Tyler and Miami Valley, we utilized a 'book-keeping' system based on each question answered. Once you hit 10, you were out (also read out of the bonuses, which Mike and Lynn would sometimes assign the points of toward whichever student obviously gave the correct answer. )

[crbirdx1]

2.5 per week on Thursdays.