Teaching swimming lessons to beginners -- please help fill the time!?

Question

My son Jacob, 18, is a lifeguard. Part of his job is giving swim lessons to children ages 4 to 7. The children are beginners. Jacob has a group of three and a group of five. The lesson is 50 minutes long. He is having a tough time filling the time with lessons and activities, and his supervisors aren't much help. Jacob was given a curriculum to teach, but the daily lessons don't fill the 50 minutes and the kids get bored (and subsequently mischievous). He is not supposed to let the kids have free time or play games until the last five minutes. He can, however, turn the lessons into games, but his supervisors haven't given him many ideas for games. Also, when Jacob is instructing one student, the others are to hang on to the wall and wait until it's their turn for instruction. Boring! Please help -- what fun things that are instructional (beginners, remember!) can Jacob do with these kids ages 4 to 7? Thanks!

Answer 1

50 minutes is not a lot of time! Your son should focus on repetition of basic skills since the kids are beginners. Each child should be doing the skills independently of the rest, one-at-a-time while the others sit on the side and wait their turn. For instance, they may all do bobs at the begining of class. It kills 10 minutes by the time they all get in and are wet and are bobbing. Move on to kicing. Make it fun, like "Let's push the wall and move it across the pool!" while they kick as hard as they can or "Let's get Jacob wet!" and make them all kick for awhlie. That kills at least 15 minutes if it's taught properly. Then they would move on to doing their other skills. You're already 25 minutes into the lesson, that's halfway! If they do kicking with bubbles or buoys each chlid should go from the wall to Jacob and back on their own or with his help. The others stay at the wall and practice blowing bubbles and bobbing ("Let me see you blowing bubbles!" or "Everyone kick and see if you can splash Anna all the way out here!" as he works with the one kid the others will stay busy) while Jacob takes each child in turn and helps him or her with skills. Each child only gets a few minutes attention at a time but with 4 kids that adds up to another 20 minutes total. Add in floating on their backs and learning safety rules and a 50-minute class period can easily be filled. If Jacob needs more guidance with his lessons he should ask his supervisor. His ultimate goal is for his students to move up a level in swim class so he should strive to help them accomplish the requirements. If there is extra time he is lucky, he can work harder and the kids will learn more! Repetition is the best teacher and make everything fun and entertaining for the kids. Not just kick, bob, blow bubbles. That's boring. He needs to learn to interact with the kids and get them involved so they don't lose focus. Also, he must make himself a presence so the kids listen. they shoudl respect him and stay on the wall and do as they are told. if not, they will be asked to leave or sit out - and he should enforce this rule. If a parent complains, tell them their kid wasn't following the rules and needs to be more respectful in the future.

It sounds like Jacob has not recieved proper training to be teaching lessons and that is not his fault, his supervisors should be more attentive. Parents are paying good money for those lessons, their children should get as much benefit as possible out of them and Jacob needs to bring that to his supervisor's attention. Sounds like his supers are being lazy!!!

Good luck!

Answer 2

Swimming Lessons For Beginners

Answer 3

Kristy gives a lot of good advice and i agree, it sounds as if your son has not been given proper training and/or been certified as a Water Safety Instructor (WSI) by the Red Cross or a YMCA Swim Instructor. these certification courses give students a lot of basics for making lessons fun as well as instructional.

the issue of kids having to "hang on the wall" is a big one at nearly every swim school. although some schools prohibit this and require the instructor to have the kids not receiving instruction to either sit on the deck (okay...) or hang onto the instructors back (not so good...) it's a bit of a catch 22. one-on-one instruction is easily the best for helping kids with specific skills and helping each one work on what they are having difficulty with, but group instruction in the form of games can also be beneficial. i won't go into a whole lot more as Kristy has covered a lot, but i will give you my favorite. i called it "jet plane" I would put my arms out like an airplane and all the kids would grab on to my arms and they were the engines. kicking our way across the pool (in the shallow end of course, so i could walk on the bottom) sometimes we would get attacked by an enemy fighter and we would have to do some evasive maneuvers, and we would all go under water and get our faces wet. this is really great for those kids that are just at that point. since all the kids do it at the same time, there is no time for a single kid to hesitate or complain. they learn quickly that putting their heads in the water is fun, since the rest of the class is having fun doing it. the only issue with this game is that the instructor has to be very aware of all his kids and make sure they are all hanging on, but with a little practice, it's easy.

good luck! have fun!

Answer 4

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Answer 5

teaching swimming lessons beginners fill time

Answer 6

u could get them 2 swim wat we call haggis- frontcrawl with one leg out of the water or backwards frontcrawl, where you lie on your stomach and do frontcrawl arms backwards. u could 2 relays as well, with one team on each side of the lane rope. drag relays are hilarious- you get a spare pair of shorts, a t-shirt, fins and paddles and put half of them at the top end and half at the bottom. swim 1 length normally, jump out, put something on, swim another length, jump out again etc until youv got everything off and then repeat taking the extra stuff off, you can do this with teams with someone swimming the length, putting something on, coming back, taking it off and the next swimmer putting it on. or u could do 3 person swims, with 3 swimmers holding each others ankles (xcept the first person), the first one doing arms and the last one kicking. or theres float relays, where you get a big float and split the team up so that the captain is at the bottom and the rest are at the top or halfway up. the captain has to kick up to the rest of team, gets someone to hold onto the top/bottom of the float and kick with them up to the end. then that swimmer has to do kick back up and so on until all of the swimmers are at the bottom of the lane. or u get them to put a pullbuoy on their heads while doing a relay, where the pullbuoy can't go in the water or the whole team has to start again. this tends to get very competitive and is not very good with young kids. sorry if this isn't too clear.

Answer 7

bring diving toys, foam tubes and water guns.
Target has a large toy section, and so is Wal-Mart

Answer 8

have him do races or shark and minos or other water games that teach lessons