Side Breathing with Front Crawl

One of the harder skills to teach is side breathing while doing the front crawl because it requires more coordination and practice. This article I found especially helpful as a guide to teaching the basics of side breathing. Some of the related articles at the bottom of the article were also good, but meant for more fine - tuning.

View the comments below to see what our teachers have to say.

Resources for Teaching a Parent 'n Me

A lot of teachers are familar with teaching from toddlers on up. Teaching parents how to teach their infants, however, is a little different. This post is a compilation of resources that I have found helpful in teaching a Parent 'n Me class.

This article is from a blog that Jim Reiser, M.S, wrote about how to teach infants how to do a back float. He calls himself the Swim Professor and has had a lot of success with his techniques. These are some of the main points that I find helpful from his article.

• "Don't force it." If your swimmer is communicating that they are uncomfortable respect it.
• Even though your swimmer is "skill ready" or capable of doing the skill, sometimes they are not mentally ready.
• Make sure swimming is a positive experience. If someone makes them do something they may learn to dislike the skills they're taught.

This video clip has really good footage of a Parent 'n Me class that is successful and a pleasant experience for the swimmers. I like the songs and activities they use to teach them skills and also to make it a positive experience in the water.

What techniques, resources, strategies, games, tips, etc. do you find successful in your own Parent 'n Me classes?

Classroom Managment Tips

Our swim teachers and aides share their ideas on how to maintain control of an excited bunch of kids in the water while teaching them important skills and having fun.

This website I found particularly helpful. Though it is for a classroom setting I think many of its ideas are applicable to swimming lessons. It gives not only ideas about classroom rules, consequences, and rewards, but also more subtle strategies that are really helpful as well.

Tips to Help Swimmers Put Their Face in the Water

AFFC Teachers Blowing Bubbles in the Water

This week's topic is something that a lot young kids and even older kids struggle with. Putting your head under the water can sometimes be scary and uncomfortable at times. Our teachers from American Fork Fitness Center share a few tips on how to help our swimmers relax and have fun putting their faces in the water.

Please note that some of the comments from our teachers are copied and pasted from an email they responded to with the same question above by the Swim Coordinator.

What are your ideas?

Survey Results

We recently sent out a survey to our parents asking them what they wanted from swim lessons. We gave them 5 choices and told them to rank them from the most important to the least important. Also included was the age and level of their child.

The overwhelming majority of the parents across all levels and ages said they wanted their kids to be comfortable and confident in the water -- to overcome their nervousness.

This week our teachers have been striving to fulfill this need. From our hot tub meeting, these are our ideas we came up with:

• ASK the swimmer why they are nervous and assure and encourage them
• Make every accomplishment -- big or small -- a big deal!
• Gradually increase the swimmer's independence and praise them for it -- it's a good thing to not hang on to your teacher
• Distract a nervous child with a toy or fun game to help them feel comfortable
• Ask the kids to bring a toy to class from home for show and tell. Use these toys in the lesson. A toy from home that is a comfort to them promotes positive feelings and experiences in the pool.
• Be imaginative! Cater to the age group. Play pretend! Make swimming lessons playtime. Playtime is never scary - it's fun!

What ideas have you used or implemented in your swimming lessons?

A Public Online Resource

Hey everyone! We, the Swim Coordinators at American Fork Fitness Center, are starting a database of all things Swimming Lessons after realizing the shortage of resources available on the internet.

We will discuss organizing swimming lessons, fun ways to teach basic skills, video trainings, effective uses for swim aids, pricing, training sessions for employees, local programs and events, and anything else that would be helpful for all you swim teachers, aids, coordinators, and pool managers out there.

Please help us in this worthwhile effort in improving our service to all of our swimmers. Let's collaborate! Leave a comment, discuss, add your ideas or a link, a video, or a lesson plan! Whatever you've got that would help us all we welcome your input!