Swimming Lesson Sitemap

Preface - It occurred to me one hot spring day that the children the four- to five-year-olds at the nursery school would enjoy cooling off in our family back-yard pool. They certainly did, and because many of them were receptive to instruction, and there was no pool available to them (they were too young for Red Cross lessons at the high school), and because I had watched my own children in their swimming lessons, I was inspired to teach very small children swimming. Many of the techniques used in the book to help children overcome their reluctance about, or fear of, the water are equally effective in teaching small children of a nursery school.

1.Better Swimming - Everyone has heard it said that children take to the water like ducks. But the fact remains that children aren't ducks, and without planned and imaginative instruction, they will show a healthy talent for doing many other things in the water than swimming. They may keep their feet glued to the bottom as if they were wearing cement boots. They may walk cautiously about as if they were in a mine field or on a terrain of poison ivy. In short, they may act as if the idea of the game were to maintain a vertical position and to keep as much of themselves as dry as possible. On the other hand, children also like to splash, clobber, and churn water.

2.Ten Lesson Plans – Part 1 -

Setting:

Pool or water with very shallow end

Teacher

Four children

Warm water (82 degrees, if possible)

Warm sun

3.Ten Lesson Plans – Part 2 -

Objective:

To teach back glide, back kick, and finning on the back.

Entering the Pool:

The children will enter the pool today from a sitting dive. If you have steps, direct them to sit on the third (or top) step. If you do not have steps into the pool, use the deck. There is definite psychological advantage in directing the children to dive from the side. The reason for this is that when the child dives off the end, he glides or swims toward the deeper water; and this knowledge may make him uneasy, even though he sees an adult standing in the shallow part of the pool.

4.Pleasures And Perils – Part 1 - When the swimming season opens everyone is enthusiastic. But no one is more enthusiastic than your children's friends. For two weeks before you plan to open the pool they have been appearing with their suits and towels under their arms, or wearing their suits under their jeans and clam diggers, and trying to act very nonchalant. This latter group is made up of ten-year-olds who have learned by now that it isn't polite to ask; they just stand around all day with a kind of yearning look. So the day you say you will open your pool, you'd better open it, or be prepared to hear the most mournful wails.

5.Pleasures And Perils – Part 2 - The pool owner knows, but visitors generally do not know, what a problem it is to keep a pool clean. Everything that goes in must come out, and some objects come out with great difficulty. For example, a paper napkin will disintegrate into a thousand pieces. Bobby pins leave a rust mark and are a menace to the filter system. Band-Aids invariably come off in the water and are hard to sweep up. At the end of a hot day, with many swimmers using sun-tan lotion, you can see pools of oil on the surface of the water. This, in turn, contributes to the scum on the sides of the pool that eventually has to be scrubbed off. Those objects which have a way of being forgotten at the bottom should be removed as soon as possible. Before the children get out, you might suggest that they dive for them. “See that bathing cap strap? The cap's down by the drain, and while you're down there, get that penny, can you?"

6.Water Games - Races and contests are tailor-made pool games but remember that they are appropriate for older children only. Elimination games for young children are never successful; their participation is necessary throughout a game since they are not good losers and cannot take defeat gracefully. For older children who are all approximately equal as swimmers, races and contests are made to order. Do not forget, however, that they also like to play the games listed for beginning swimmers such as Diving for Pennies.

THE END