Winter Swimming Lessons

Both girls took swimming lessons in January and February on Wednesday evenings.  The class sizes were very small, so they got a lot of individual help learning to hold their breath, learning to dive, and learning swimming skills and strokes.

Sarah

Sarah made a lot of progress and improvement on her Freestyle and Backstroke.  She also began to learn the kicking and arm motions for the Breaststroke, and the Sidestroke.

She worked on diving almost every Wednesday.  If she could remember to keep her chin tucked down she would have a pretty good dive.  Right now her chin and face pop up and cause her to belly flop or jump in instead of a nice clean dive.

She enjoys jumping off the diving board and swimming to the side or all the way down the length of the pool.

She also liked trying to do handstands in the shallow part of the pool during her free-time at the end of each lesson.

A few nights they got to use kick-boards while they worked on kicking their feet and moving their arms the correct ways.  They also practiced diving off the blocks one night.

Me: What was your favorite thing about winter indoor swimming lessons?
Sarah: "Doing handstands in the water."

Me: What do you think you did the best at in swimming lessons?  What do you think you need to work more on this summer?

Sarah: "Holding my breath (was the best). I need to work on diving and froggy legs."

Phoebe

Phoebe only had one other little girl in her class, and two teachers, so both girls had one on one time with a teacher at each lesson.

Phoebe did a lot of practicing moving her arms (big arms) and kicking her legs hard, both on her belly and back.  She got to use a kick-board a couple of times, but it was hard for her to hold onto and liked to slip right out of her arms and hands.  She also practiced holding her breath, jumping off the side of the pool wall, and had an introduction to diving.

At the end of each lesson time Phoebe got to jump off the diving board 2 or 3 times.  It seemed to make her a little nervous, but she also looked forward to it and told us it was something that she liked.

Me: What was your favorite thing about winter indoor swimming lessons?
Phoebe: "I liked going off the diving board."

Me: What do you think you did the best at in swimming lessons?  What do you think you need to work more on this summer?

Phoebe: "I did good kicking my legs.  Going down and touching the teacher's toe. (is what she thinks she needs to work on)."