Looking for some good fun advanced 8U Drills

[Dew5000]

I coach 8U little league for my DD's team which is 5-8 , I also started coaching a travel lite/ all star type of 8U team, I have 2 really good 6 year old's (one being DD), and the rest are 7 and 8. I am somewhat struggling with the fine line between boring them to death with drills, and keeping practice fun at the same time. The group of girls all hit pretty well, which is really my best area of teaching too. Defensively, and baserunning we need some of work to be competitive in tournaments we are playing in (who wants to lose all of the time).

Im trying to come up with some more useful drills that are also a lot of fun for the girls.

Right now our biggest issues are getting the ball back in to the pitcher quickly, and not using momentum when throwing, and of course pop ups. And baserunning wise getting them to look and listen to coaches has been a struggle. We got caught in a triple play and a few double plays on caught pop ups last tournament. I have a lot of drills and practice ideas that address these issues, but none of them are particularly fun for the girls.

Any ideas?

 

[bmakj]

for pop ups, get a bucket of tennis balls (worn out is fine), have them put on batting helmets, and make it a contest to see who can have the most popflies hit their helmet (you hit or throw them so they have to move to get under it). I did a free ice cream a couple of times to the winner, candy bars worked too. you can also try and have them catch them barehanded (helps reinforce two hands), but they have to catch it overhand.