Keeping The Spirit ALL YEAR!

Tryouts in May, Camp and Practices in July & August, School, and Football Games run from September to November, Winter Tryouts in November, Basketball Games, and Competitions from December through March. Nine months is a LONG time to keep kids motivated.  Even longer if you don’t have the second tryout in November.  Keeping your athletes from getting bored is an art!  There are many, many ways to help them stay motivated and excited all year long.  Here are just a few.

No Cheering Allowed!

No Cheering Allowed

For one practice each month, have a team outing or gathering that has nothing to do with cheerleading.  Go bowling, roller skating, or have a team dinner and watch funny movies.  Have a rule that they are not to talk about cheerleading or wear anything cheerleading related.  It will be a bonding experience for them.  Play a game that is a variation on the baby/wedding shower game.  Give each girl a necklace or a pin and if anyone is caught saying the word Cheer, they lose their item.  The cheerleader with the most collected items wins.

Themed Practices

Have dress-up days.  One day we had a day where the cheerleaders had to wear the t-shirt of a different school to practice.  It could be any school, but they were not allowed to wear our school colors!  You can have superhero days, idol days, color days, etc.  The limits are endless.  Just make sure that they are safe for practice.

Team Bonding 

Have team bonding activities at least once a week at practice or instead of practice.  There are a million different bonding activities that range from mushy to sappy.  You can play games that force them to work together.  Sit in a circle and talk about things, such as; Why are you here? Why do you appreciate the person next to you? What is your favorite commercial? Etc?

Community Service & Volunteering

If they can work together off the field they will be amazing on it.  Taking time away from cheer to help others and spread kindness can really help to motivate a stagnant team.  It gives them goals to work toward that are not skill based and are very attainable.  This section is brought to you by the letter C.

Weekly Praise

Weekly Praise

Choose a stuffed animal or a trophy to give out to a cheerleader each week.  This traveling trophy can be a source of motivation.  Give it out to the best all around cheerleader from the week.  They take turns with it and on Friday when the new winner is announced they can ceremoniously hand it over.  Take a picture of each week's winner and make a collage at the end of the year.  If your mascot doesn’t lend to a good animal or trophy you could use a stuffed COW.  For Cheerleader of the Week!

Rotating Captains

Until your team votes or your captains are chosen you could have a captain for a day.  The daily choice can lead stretches, take turns calling chants, choose the dance or material to work on that day.  They could even take turns teaching the team material or bringing the team a snack.  You may like this setup so much you will keep it all year long!

Team Journal

Each week, sit down with a notebook and your team and have them contribute comments, notes, anecdotes, and stories from the week.  Have someone write them all down and then journal them.  At the end of the season put them together and give a copy to team members to remember the season.  You could also do this with a Video Journal.  You could film throughout the week and at the end, they could each take turns talking about the week.

Material Update
Take a look at your chant lists for both Football and Basketball.  Are you in need up updating them? Take some time in between seasons to review and remove any that are no longer effective, or simply not fun.  You may have some football chants that you can change up the words to and carry into basketball.  You could break your team into small groups and have them come up with one revision and one new chant. Then they all could take turns teaching their chants.

When trying to motivate your cheerleaders, make sure you stay motivated too.  Your enthusiasm for the sport carries through to your team.

Cheers!

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CW3

Kindness Matters

Have you ever been sitting in line at Starbucks waiting on your order and pull up to the window and have the cashier tell you that your coffee had been paid for by the person in front of you? 

Perhaps you came home from a long day at work to find all the leaves in your yard had been raked and bagged for you.

What about standing in line at the grocery store with only one or two items in your hands and the person in front of you offers to let you go in front of them?

These Random Acts of Kindness probably made your day and you probably have had times when you offered your kindness to others and expected nothing in return…

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Each year my squad chooses a charity or organization to support.  We typically host a fundraiser and donate the proceeds or use them to purchase items for the organization.  In the past we have supported Students Helping Students, The Animal Ark, and the Susan G. Komen Race for a cure, to name a few.

This year I feel that it is important that we choose something that we can continue throughout the season that does not involve money.  With the economy struggling, it will be nice to find a way to give back without having to pay to do so.

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is the heart of the kindness movement whose aim is to help everyone create a better world by spreading awareness and increasing engagement in kind actions.  The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation inspires people to practice kindness and to pass it on to others.

This year, my cheerleaders will be participating in the RAK movement.  We will spend the whole year finding ways to spread kindness and cheer to friends, family, teachers and even strangers. 

Here are just a few ways they will accomplish this:

• Give someone a flower
• Eat lunch with someone new
• Visit a sick friend
• Offer a hug
• Give an unexpected gift
• Open a door
• Plant a tree
• Leave a thank you note
• Give a compliment
• Do a favor
• Walk a dog
• Donate your gently used items
• Make a new friend

Please join us in the effort to make the world a better place.

You can read more about the Random Acts of Kindness foundation here:

http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/

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CW3
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