Fun Games for Swim Lessons

Fun games for swim lessons introduce children to submerging and swimming in water. Improvise familiar games that children play in the schoolyard, such as "Tag" or dodge ball, and set them in the pool. Use also activities that familiarize children with the properties of water, such as its density. By having children play games in water, you help them shed their fears or inhibitions associated with a foreign environment.

  1. Submerging Underwater

    • Form pairs or small groups and sink to the bottom of the pool. Gather close together underwater so you can hear each other. Have one person hum his favorite tune. Allow each person three guesses. Swap places if someone names the tune or everyone in the group has had three guesses. Expand on the music theme by playing a game in which each person tries to impersonate a favorite pop star. Mimic Eddie Van Halen on the guitar or Madonna in the middle of a pop song. Engage children with an underwater game so they shed the fear of staying below the water's surface.

    Underwater Coordination

    • Play games that increase a swimmer's coordination underwater. Gather toys that will sink in water but not dissipate or ruin. Check with pool staff to make sure the toys are safe to use in a pool. Allow the toys to sink to the bottom and place them in different spots. Ask the children to line up along the edge of the pool. Call out the first toy of the treasure hunt. Instruct the first child in line to dive into the pool and retrieve the toy. Call out the second item of treasure as the first child returns with his toy. Begin this game by forming a star shape with your legs and arms in water that is only about neck-deep. Have your swimming partner face you. Open your legs wide for the first round. Ask you partner to swim through your legs without touching them. Keep narrowing the distance between your legs until your partner can't squeeze through without touching you. Swap places, only this time you have to swim through their legs.

    Moving Through Water

    • Play versions of "Tag" and "Freeze Tag" in water. Have the swimmers enter the water and line up against the side of the pool. Choose one person to be the shark while everyone else plays a fish. Call out "Shark!" Watch the swimmers scamper through the water, swimming away like fish. Turn a tagged, or captured, swimmer into a shark and continue the game. Select one person to be the tagger in "Starfish Tag." Instruct the swimmers that the tagger has to tag all of the players in the game. Have swimmers who are tagged freeze in the pool in the shape of a starfish, with arms and legs spread. Set the rule that if a free swimmer squeezes through a tagged person's legs without getting tagged, the tagged person is set free.

    Prepare for Water Polo

    • Prepare children for the rigor of water polo by having them play "Piggy in the Middle" in the pool. Select one child to stand in the center of a circle of swimmers. Inflate a beach ball and toss it in the pool. Ask the others to throw the ball over and around the center child, or the "piggy," in the middle. Instruct the center child to try and catch the ball. If the "piggy in the middle" catches the ball, he swaps places with the swimmer who threw the ball.