This year we signed Ellie up for swim classes at Transylvania University. Everyone says that these are the best classes offered in town, with smaller teacher/student ratios than at the Y. (Ellie has taken two sessions of six-week, child-and-parent classes at the Y.)
One session was eight days of 30-min classes in a row, and our session started the Wednesday after Memorial Day. Ellie was very excited to start swim lessons, and to wear her flip-flops (she only gets to wear flip-flops if we are going to the pool/beach.)
Day 1: Face in the water, being held in the water, learning to kick.
Day 2: Diving board!
Day 3: Goggles.
(insert groan here) From this class on, more time was spent getting goggles on the girls than was spent in the water. Goggles came off, had to be put back on, hair got caught, eyes were squished wonky, etc, etc, etc. For our part, once she took her goggles off, we told Ellie she wasn't getting them back on. (other parents weren't as mean.)
Days 4-6: More of the same - but very cute each day, and brave in the water!
Day 7: diving for rings. a.k.a. being held by Miss Andi underwater to grab a ring.
Day 8: last class. Review of skills. Jumped off the board by herself - VERY proud!
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| Kick, Kick, Kick! |
My overall review of the classes would be: meh. I had hoped to have the very basic swimming skill of FLOATING achieved at the end of the classes. But they never really practiced floating without a noodle (except for one brief moment on the first day). I also would have liked to see them teaching holding your breath and blowing bubbles. We're lucky if we can get Ellie to close her mouth at all. I'm glad she has the confidence to jump off a diving board, but she has no idea what to do once she's in the water. Here is a sequence of her trying to 'swim' to the noodle.
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| Waterlogged, but okay. |
She leaves the edge of the pool, and plop - down she goes! I've tried teaching her to float on her back at our pool, but I'm not a swim teacher, and she won't put her ears in the water for me (just miss Andi). So, it was a fun week-and-a-half, and Ellie loved it, but did she learn any basic swimming skills? Notsomuch. Pete thinks I am expecting too much for her age, but I could swim by age three, and I want her to be safe at our pool this summer.
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| Tired, but happy, girl. |
2 comments:
I don't think you're expecting too much...but maybe too soon? We did lessons twice a week January - April at the y and the session at Transy last week. The y did better at teaching floating and setting them loose, but Transy did better with the skills: kicking and strokes. After all those lessons (and almost $300), C can float on her back and doggie paddle. *sigh* Her big sister did January - April once a week at the Y and went from scared to death to get in a pool to 100% confident and capable - back stroke, breast stroke, hand stands, etc. So maybe age helped? After doing both, I liked Transy more because of the class sizes. I bet if Ellie did another session, she would get further! Swimming is the skill that drives me most crazy from the mom point of view (seconded by shoe tying).
Psst. Don't underestimate yourself Mom. You can teach her those skills. Save the lessons for fancy strokes and diving techniques.
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