Swimming Lessons 2010

Starting the last week of May, Grant was enrolled in Swimming lessons at the local pool. He took swim lessons last year too and did okay, but we couldn't convince him to get his head wet. This year, he did a lot better. He even learned to swim under the water. YAY!There were three 2-week sessions. Don't you love the fact that Grant had to hike his swim trunks up to his armpits? This was the kids playing a game called 'speckled frog'. The teacher and kids sang a song and then when they said a certain line 'one jumped into the pool', one kid would jump in.

This video from the first session shows how Grant jumped in - turning around in the air and grasping at the side so that he didn't go under the water. He made big progress between this first session and the last one.

This is Grant with his first teacher who was great with Grant and got him to put his head under the water repeatedly!

Here's Grant with his class waiting to go off the diving board. The first two sessions, Grant preferred to jump off with a life jacket. See how much smaller he is than the rest of the kids in his class? In one of these videos, right after Grant jumps in, his little friend that's in his class belly flops right in the water. That's the way he jumped in every time, even off the side of the pool.

Here's Grant jumping off the diving board to his favorite teacher. This next video is of Grant going off the diving board during the last week of the last session of lessons. He has to wait for his favorite teacher to come catch him, but he goes right in the water and even under the water! Yay for Grant! He had a lot of improvement this summer and especially during the last session of lessons. He just needs to work on floating on his back and his backstroke and he can pass on to the next level. Maybe next summer! YAY!

At the end of each session, on the last day, all the kids got to go down the water slides at the pool. There are two of them. Grant was very excited to go down the purple slide because it's longer and it's twisty. But that's the one that all the kids wanted to go down so the line was very long. Grant figured out that if he went down the green slide instead, he could go over and over because there were hardly any other kids that wanted to go down that slide. All about quantity for him I guess.

The last session of swim lessons, we put Grant in the evening time slot because there was a parent-tot class during that time as well. We signed up Jacob and Lottie so Jared and I could do swim lessons with them at the same time that Grant was having his own lessons. Jacob and Lottie loved the water. All Jacob wanted to do was jump into the pool over and over again. Jared helped him float on his back and paddle and kick at the same time. He was the first one to ask if they could go off the diving boards every night. The first time the kids went off the diving boards the teacher tried to get them to wear life jackets and Jacob totally freaked out. He would NOT put one on. But he wanted to jump off the boards. The first time he jumped off the diving board his teacher helped him, but after that, he did it all by himself. He was always the last one standing after the other little kids had quit. He loved it!

Here he is jumping off on the last night. Jared was trying to teach him how to cannonball by bringing his knees up to his chest. He did pretty good!

After watching Grant have swim lessons for a month and a half, Jacob knew that the kids got to go down the slides on the last day, so he was all geared up for it. We checked with his teacher before the last day to see if they let the little ones do that, so we could prepare Jacob if it wasn't to be, but they got to go down the slides too. And Jacob went down both the purple one and the green one. So Grant hasn't been down the purple one yet, but Jacob has!

Unexpectedly, Lottie was a natural swimmer! I had put her in the kiddie pool we have for the boys once or twice, but this was the first time she'd been in a real pool. She did great! She splashed and kicked her legs and waved her arms all over the place. She loved it!She wasn't as keen to be on her back, preferred her tummy, which is normal. She loved being thrown up in the air and she would 'jump' in to the pool if I set her up on side. Her way of 'jumping' was to lean forward until she fell in. But she always had a big grin on her face when she did it.Our little water baby! She did better in the water than lots of the older kids in the class, who cried the whole time and wouldn't get their faces wet.