Swimming Lessons

The kids started swimming lessons in June at Layton Surf N Swim. The very first day they have all the parents and children sit on the bleachers and the Swimming Manager comes up and talks to the parents. He instructed us to not interrupt the class, not try and teach over the teacher, not to come up to the side of the pool, not to signal our kids and if there was any problems to address them before or after class. Then the teachers come up and call their class, the class in turn follows the teacher to their spot at one of the pools. There were two preschool classes and Grace and Max were in the 2nd class with teacher Kayla and Kristine. In my head I thought do I follow them? But then I thought they will be fine, they will be with their teachers and will do better without me sitting right there.

However, as they were walking to their classes somehow they started following the other preschool class and ended up in the wrong pool. The other preschool class thought Grace was with the older class so she starts walking out into the middle of the big pool all by herself, she's getting deeper and deeper and deeper and I was like I know I'm not suppose to say anything but hello there's a 4 year old, my 4 year old, almost neck deep by now! So I start yelling at the preschool teacher and they said she's not in our class - at this point I was like I don't care if she's not in your class she needs help!

Grace was so brave she was just trying to get to the other class like they told her, but it gave her mamma a little panic attack. Eventually we got her to the right class, in the right pool and the rest of the classes went smoothly. Everyday the kids started out sitting on the edge of the pool playing Motor Boat Motor Boat and would kick and splash.

Splashing as it turned out was what Max did best. After the first day I sat right by the small pool, and watching Grace and Max was a little snippet of what schools going to be like. Grace was always asking to be first to try something, asking if she did it right, good enough and if they wanted her to try again. She loved every minute of it. Max was always distracted, splashing when he wasn't suppose to be, teasing the girls, making the boys laugh and I can't tell you how many times I heard "Max, come back over with the class," or "Max, if you can't stop splashing we'll have to get your mom." Grace is my little brown noser and Max is my little class clown.

The kids played Speckled Frog on a log and jumped into the pool some days. Grace really liked jumping in, but Max went all the way under one day and was so mad at the teacher he refused to get back in the water. He kept saying "teacher threw me in the water". It made me laugh.

The kids would practice assisted front floats and back floats and then they'd put their face in the water and blow bubbles.

Here they are playing Alligator alligator what time is it? They would have one kid stand on the other side of the pool and the kids were suppose to only go one step for what ever time it was. It didn't work so well as all the kids just raced from one end to the other no matter what time it was.

One other thing about the first day, when we got to the car Grace asked why they didn't teach her how to swim that day. She had really high expectations!

The whole point of the preschool class is to get the kids comfortable in water and not afraid of getting their faces wet - they both passed the class but I'm not sure I'm ready to move them to level 1- they all looked so old! Overall I liked their teachers and the facilities. Sitting in the shade at 9 am wasn't my favorite and some days the kids were cold but overall I would go back.