Swim Activities For Increasing Confidence In Children

Today we have been swimming and I thought I would share the activities, games and songs that we do in the pool to help gain confidence in the water. These are ideal for beginners, who can't  swim at all and are needing to gain water confidence before they can move onto actual swimming.

The main thing is it's all done through play, involving songs, and imaginary ideas and the children progress as they feel ready.

So initially the children need to get used to water in their faces, so getting them to wash their face etc, singing the song this is the way we....,  with various lines, you or the children can probably think of your own too. So ones we use are wash their face (splashing pool water onto their face), wash our hair (scooping some water in their hands and putting on their heads), if shallow enough for the child, we do walk to, nursery, school, shops whatever is most appropriate for you age child. So they walk along in the shallow end which results in splashy water. It is best to let the child do the actions to themselves and you do it to yourself so they can see it's absolutely fine. 

We also do ring a ring a roses nursery rhyme too. Ring a ring o' roses, a pocket full of posies, atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down. At which point the child goes under the water as far as they are happy, which initially may just be the tip of their chin ! but they will go further over time. Especially if you do fall down and get your face wet, and they see you are ok. You can also do another verse the cows are in the meadow, eating buttercups, atishoo, atishoo we all jump up. At which point you both jump up, which normally creates some splashing and getting used to moving in the water.

On a similar theme you can do the grand of duke of York nursery rhyme, moving up and down in the water at the appropriate times.

If the pool has a shallow enough section that the child can stand and walk around comfortably I normally pretend I'm a shark, dolphin, seal, fish, whatever sea creature works for you, and I pretend to chase them. Which involves them running away from me through the water but they normally end up splashed and also sometimes end up kicking or using their arms like swimming if they go quickly enough without realising it.  Also in the same way, we race to a point depending on the pool which encourages movement in the water. 

If they are at the stage of being happy to put their face in the water, even a bit, or you are trying to encourage it. Again use the sea analogy and pretend underwater is the sea, and sea bed and get them to look and see what they can spot underwater. You join in too, so face in the water see what you can see, shipwrecks, colourful fish, dolphins etc... Use your imagination.
 
We also do blowing bubbles on the surface, breathe in and then blow out into the water causing bubbles. The bigger and noisier the better. See who can do more. At the pool we go to, there are characters on the wall so we blow bubbles to the frog and the boy painted on the wall. For this activity these toys are great fun, they flip over in the water as you blow them.