Swim Lesson Activities

Fun and beneficial activities are key when you are teaching anyone to swim. Swimmers of all ages can enjoy a range of activities for all skill levels. A good activity for swimming lessons should include physical exercise as well as some sort of objective that is achieved through exercise. Keeping these activities fun is the major challenge when coming up with new ideas, and the more game-like they can be made, the more popular they will be amongst swimmers.

  1. Floating

    • For a person -- usually a child -- learning to swim, activities that emphasize breath control and floating are necessary before beginning activities that rely heavily on strength, speed and endurance. For instance, a good activity for a beginner would be to learn the back-float. An instructor standing next to the child can teach him to float easily by making him lie on his back in the water and supporting his spine by holding him between the shoulder blades. The child will float on his back, breathe and learn that the air in his lungs keeps him afloat. This technique needs only to be a taught a few times before the child will understand how to float alone. The child can then be taught to kick on his back very easily.

    Marco Polo

    • Marco Polo is an easy swim lesson activity for all ages that should be played in shallow water, especially if played with small children or inexperienced swimmers. One person from the group is "it" and must close her eyes and shout "Marco!" to which the rest of the group replies "Polo!" The object of the game is for whoever is "it" to find the other swimmers by following the sounds of their voices and splashes in the water. Once whoever is "it" tags another person, that person becomes "it" and the game continues. The participants in this game exercise by swimming around quietly in shallow water. The game may be moved to deeper water or altered so that participants cannot touch the bottom with their feet to make it more challenging.

    Beach Balls and Sinking Toys

    • A good shallow water game involves dividing your swimmers into two groups on opposite sides of the pool and a beach ball. The idea is that they must keep the beach ball in the air and not let it touch the water. If the ball touches the water, the opposing side gets a point. This game requires much exercise from your swimmers. Diving for brightly colored sinking pool toys is another good game for swimmers. They will have to learn to hold their breath while swimming underwater to participate.

    Relay Races

    • For more advanced swimmers, the relay race is a classic example of competition and exercise co-mingling in a game. Participants are divided into groups of four and each group is given a lane in the pool for racing. Each team will complete the race by swimming a quarter of the distance, one at a time. Each swimmer will start his leg of the race as soon as the preceding member of his team has completed her leg. This rule does not apply to the lead swimmer, who starts at the sound of the starting whistle. Whichever team completes the required distance first wins.

    Sharks and Minnows

    • Essentially a game of tag with two opposing pool walls being designated "safe zones," shark and minnows, perhaps the most famous swimming activity, is fun to play and an excellent cardiovascular workout. The game begins with one swimmer playing the "shark" swimming about in the open pool water while the rest of the swimmers, now designated "minnows," huddle on one "safe" wall and wait for the instructor's signal to swim to the other side. The shark swims after the minnows and any he tags before they touch the other "safe" wall are now designated sharks and remain in the open water. These new sharks will tag minnows the next time they are signaled to cross the open water. The shark crowd will continue to grow in this fashion until one minnow remains. The last minnow wins the game and becomes the first shark in the next game.