Emma’s Swimming Tips – Part 3: Practice Makes Perfect
29 April 2020
Another important part of learning to swim involves your child being comfortable on their back with the water surrounding their head.
- Start helping them get familiar with this feeling by running a very shallow bath and have them lay back. You could even try putting your hand behind their head to give them extra security.
- Progress onto having a slightly deeper bath so the water is high enough for your child to lay on their back with the water covering their body and ears, with their face out of the water.
- Then you can raise the water level even higher so that children get the sensation of floating while having their ears in the water.
- Put a mobile above them or stick some stickers to the ceiling to give them something to look at or give them a toy to hold to distract them. A bath mirror is ideal as they can look at themselves while they do it.
- Why not sing twinkle twinkle little star to little ones, or have them sing it to distract themselves?
- Ask them what they can hear under the water; we’re always amazed at what the children say that the fish and mermaids are telling them!
Some out-of-bath activities too!
Children can also practice climbing into and out of the pool at home using a sofa or a high bed. When climbing into the pool, they need to put both their hands to one side of their body and make a diamond shape with their hands, turn onto their tummy and wriggle off the bed. To climb out, push up and put their knee on the bed – great for some upper body strength!
I’m sure many of you will have a slide in your garden. Reinforcing that children need to stay facing the steps when climbing up and down them will help them with using a ladder to get into and out of the pool.
Why not practice leg kicking on the floor (or while lying in the bath if you’re feeling brave and if your child is small enough)? Young children often struggle with keeping their legs long while kicking in the pool. We’re looking for long legs and pointy toes – little kicks and small splashes – a shallow bath can be ideal for this, keeping their legs in the bath.
We will continue to post ideas for keeping your child water confident as the weeks go on and our teachers are already planning for the return to lessons, and how to get children back to where they were last month, as soon as possible.
We’re all missing you lots and look forward to seeing you back in the pool soon. Let us know how you get on with these activities. Why not post on social media and tag our Facebook, @WoodrowHighHouse!
Thank you for reading this blog series, keep an eye on our Facebook page for more!
Written by Emma Collins
