Activities for beginning swimmers in small private lessons?

Question

My uncle and I are running swim lessons at his pool this summer. We have groups of 4 kids, with ranging ages and levels. Both my uncle and myself are competitive swimmers, and are really comfortable in the water. We usually split up the kids into groups of 2, and I take the younger kids, who are usually a little less advanced. I just need something to fill all of our time. I have 30 minutes for 2 kids. There's a lot of one-on-one time and a lot of repetition, which I know is good, but I wish we had more activities. I'm trying to get them to blow bubbles. And there's a big step that's in a foot of water and I'll have them place their entire face in the water to get a dive ring. And of course they hold the wall and kick, and then we use kickboards, and they practice jumping in and putting their head under. But most of them are too small and new at this to "swim" from one step to another. I just need more small confidence-building activities to get them comfortable in the water

Answer 1

Have them hum and put their faces in the water. Humming is the same as blowing bubbles only the bubbles will come out their nose and they get to make a sound, very cool!

When you have them holding the wall and kicking, make it fun. Say something like "let's try to push the wall so hard that it moves!" and that way they kick harder and have a goal and they have fun. They also love it if you "help" move the wall by kicking with them. Another one that works is to stand behind them while they are kicking and say "Okay now see if you can get me wet!" they will kick hard and you have to be ultra dramatic about how much they splash, they love it!

Can you have them "swim" from the wall to you? You already understand this concept based on what you said so here's a variation. Have them hold the wall with one hand. Reach out to you with the other. You hold their outstretched hand and stand in front of them, facing the wall. They push off, kick and reach out for your other hand, thus creating a "stroke" like affect. You grab their hand and they kick their feet until they are to you. Crouch and let them stand on your knees, facing the wall and have them push or "jump" off of your knees toward the wall and "swim" back with your help (hand son their sides usually works best). always get excited about everything and they will too.

When working on back floating, do the breath-in, breath-out exercise. With your support, have them flaot on their back. Tell the child to take a deep breath in and hold it and then let it out slowly and all the way. Have the child do this two or three times and then tell you what they felt their body doing they should tell you when they breathe in they float more and when they breathe out they sink a little. Explain that this is how we float, our lungs are like giant balloons full of air. Kids like that kinda stuff and it's educational. Have them all try it to see who can blow out the most air or float for the longest time.

Do the "head under count" where they bob under and count to one, then two, then three. See who can get to five and give them a special treat such as an extra jump or a sticker. Five seconds of breath-holding is great for a little kid and they will soon realize they can do it longer.

Pole to the floor is another good exercise for when they get a ltitle more advanced. Kids like to hold onto something for reassurance and in this case it's gonna be your skimmer net pole or rescue pole. Take the pole into the water with you. Place it perpendicular to the pool floor so it stands straight up out of the pool. The object is to get the kids to go hand-over-hand down the pole and touch the bottom of the pool. By using their hand-over-hand motion they have soemthing to hold on to and won't be as scared. Start with two hands under or three hands under and soon enough they'll go deeper and come up smiling. Just watch and make sure they don't panic of let go of the pole. Touching the bottom of the poolmis a huge accomplishment and as they progress having pennies on the bottom as an incentive never hurts!

Good luck and have a fun summer! ( =

Answer 2

When I taught swim lessons we played the motorboat game. We would hold hands so they felt a little more comfortable and would chant "Motorboat, motorboat goes so slow" (and everyone puts their mouth or face in the water and blows bubbles slowly), then chant "motorboat, motorboat goes so fast" (fast bubbles), then "motorboat, motorboat runs out of gas" and everyone goes underwater.

We would also play the fish game. It was a game where each child would go underwater and when they came up they would tell everyone what type of fish they "saw". Kids love to imagine seeing things under the water and they would come up with crazy colors and patterns and sizes, it was fun!

Kids also love relay races, even just walking the width of the pool as fast as they can, puting their mouth in to blow bubbles along the way as if they were motorboats. Alot of land-based games can transfer to the water, so think of games you loved as a child and adapt them!