Our Curriculum
Gone are the days where children learn to swim by being thrown into the deep end. Our teaching philosophy is rooted in having fun and creating an environment where swimmers feel safe, supported, and simultaneously challenged. Our curriculum is based on that developed by the American Red Cross, and we offer a variety of lessons at different levels that are rooted in a water safety-based curriculum. So whether your swimmer is looking to get over a fear of the water or learn how to swim butterfly, we have a lesson and instructor for you!
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Parent-Tot Lessons
Build Familiarity
The ultimate goal of these lessons is to introduce your young child to the water and help them build a basic comfort with being in the pool in a lesson environment. We find that a general fear and anxiety for the pool to be one of the largest challenges for our kindergarten aged swimmers, and working through that nervousness now helps to speed up learning as they get older!
Submerging & Blowing Bubbles
With your assistance, your child will get accustomed to the feeling of getting their face wet and putting their head and ears under the water. Learning to blow bubbles is essential to water safety so that your child knows what to do should they find themselves with their nose and mouth under the water. In addition, this skill will be key to the more independent swimming they learn later.
Floating With Parent Assistance
The basics of floating is an important skill to develop water safety in your child. Your child will start to learn how to float with proper body position on both their front and back. Teaching them how to do this comfortably will be the first step toward building a confident swimmer and good floating makes for good swimming technique!
Rudimentary Arm & Leg Motion
As your child works on becoming more comfortable in the pool, we spend time working on using their arms and legs. At this level, we aim to introduce to them what kicking and using their arms should feel like. We work with you to help your child to understand the meaning of the words "kick" and "arms" so that they can work towards making these rudimentary motions independently of your assistance.
Level 1 Lessons
Build Confidence
These lessons put an emphasis on introducing your child to the water and helping them build their confidence. We focus on mastering submerging and blowing bubbles, as these are important foundational skills for further skill development.
Floating With Assistance
Another large area we will work on are the basics of floating. Your child will learn how to float with proper body position which is an important skill to have that leads to good kicking and swimming form! Additionally, becoming familiar with floating is an important step toward learning water safety!
Using Arms & Legs
Once your child is comfortable in the pool and has started working on floating, we spend plenty of time working on using arms and legs. At this level, children require instructor assistance, as they learn the rudimentary form and get used to these new motions.
Water Safety
Water safety is one of the most important and sought after skills for your child to learn. We build on the other skills learned thus far and teach your child to become familiar with deep water and how they can keep themselves safe should they find themselves in it. At this level, we predominantly focus on working past fear of these skills and focus mastery of water safety in later lessons.
Level 2 Lessons
Floating Without Assistance
By this level, your child should have the ability to float comfortably with assistance. Now, we will work on floating on both front and back for longer periods of time without assistance. Doing so with proper form will help create a stronger and more efficient swimming technique as they progress.
Using Arms & Legs Independently
Your child should already have some familiarity with how to kick and use their arms in the standard front crawl stroke. In these lessons, we will continue to work on these skills so that they develop better form and are able to swim for longer distances using less energy. We will also work on swimming with arms and legs simultaneously as opposed to using either independent of the other.
Swimming On Back
At this point, you child will be very familiar with swimming on their front, but we also want to introduce swimming on their back. We will spend additional time mastering floating and kicking on their back before learning the basics of using their arms to swim backstroke. We don't expect mastery at this level, but instead work on developing a rudimentary stroke that can be built upon in later lessons.
Further Water Safety
We will build on the practical swimming skills that your child has been learning and practice water safety skills that will challenge them but will be an important step toward learning to keep themselves safe. In this level, we will spend time working on treading water, jumping into deep water and kicking back to the surface, and swimming with no assistance short distances to the wall.
Level 3 Lessons
Improving Stroke Technique
By the time your child is in our intermediate level lessons, they should have total confidence in the pool and have the ability to swim independently some distance on their own. The main focus of these lessons will be to improve their stroke technique which will enable them to swim farther without using as much energy. A main focus in these lessons is usually side breathing which takes time to master but is an important stepping stone toward good swimming!
Building Stamina
As your child continues to practice swimming longer distances with the new techniques that they are learning, they will slowly develop the endurance to swim longer distances without assistance. Often times, we use these lessons to help prepare kids for swim team, which typically requires that they swim one length of the pool without stopping.
Learning New Strokes
Up until this point, your child will be able to swim using the front crawl. They may also have experience swimming backstroke or breaststroke, but in these lessons we will also spend time either learning these new strokes or improving on their ability to use them. We want your child to be able to swim with 3 of the 4 major swimming strokes with some proficiency after spending consistent time in these lessons, which will also help to prepare them for the more challenging environment of swim team.
Mastering Water Safety
Usually by this level, the kids are old enough, tall enough, and have the stamina to support themselves and keep themselves in water up to 5 feet deep. However, these lessons will spend some time on mastering the water safety skills from the previous levels so that you know that they can keep themselves safe should they find themselves in deeper water.