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Time to Play! Kicking

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them. Here’s a fun way to teach your kids to be aware of the rhythm of their swimming kick.

Use a drum or make one out of a cardboard cylinder and enough masking tape to cover the opening entirely. Have your child sit in a chair and kick the drum with his flutter-kicking feet. What kind of music can he make? Can he make rhythms? Can he kick very steadily and quickly?

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Time to Play! Going Underwater

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them. Once your kids are comfortable going underwater, try this game to help them develop this swimming skill without realizing they’re practicing.

Play duck. Quack on the surface together and then dunk your heads under to look for food. Did you find any? Can ducks quack while they’re underwater? What do they see while they’re under there?

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Time to Play! Blowing Bubbles

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them.  Here’s how to use sound to help your kids blow bubbles, an important way to help them learn to be aware of and control their breathing when you’re teaching them to swim.

Have your child make his bubble blowing sound like a boat. How about a helicopter? How about a fart? (Kids love fart jokes. What are you gonna do?)

You can also try a more artistic, refined approach. Can your kids hum their favorite songs and blow bubbles at the same time? Can you guess what songs they’re humming? Was that Bohemian Rhapsody?

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Time to Play! Getting out of the Pool

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them.  This is especially true of swimming skills that are essential and that, for safety reasons, have to be practiced enough for them to become automatic. Try these games to help your kids practice getting out of the pool. They won’t even realize they’re practicing.

Try combining imagination games with things your kids know how to do on dry land to make it fun. Have your child pretend to be a rock climber or a mountain climber. How about a knight or a princess climbing up or down a tower? How about an acrobat?