Posts Tagged ‘swimming’

LEGO Olympics

Monday, October 26th, 2015

LEGO-Olympics

My son enjoyed making a LEGO Olympics scene. It came out great! He started off with a green LEGO base, attaching a red track around the base in the form of a circle. This was the running track, and he placed several Olympic runners on the race track, bending their legs and arms as if they were running.

Next he made a long jump activity. He made this out of green LEGOs, alternating light green and dark green. He placed several jumpers on it. One jumper had his hands back and was tilted slightly forward because he was about to jump. The other jumper had already landed and was in a sitting position.

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The next part is the swimming area. Several swimmers are in the water; one is going one direction and one is going the other. If you want to make a larger Olympic swimming pool, you can make another scene. This way you can make lanes in the swimming pool by using light blue LEGOs as the dotted lines inside the dark blue swimming pool water. Place white LEGOs on the two shorter edges of the swimming pool, and have the swimmers diving into the pool and swimming down the lanes. I hope you enjoyed our fun Olympic LEGO scenes!

Swim Lessons

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

swim-lessons

One of the most crucial skills for a child to learn is how to swim. If a boat overturns or some other accident occurs around water, you want your children to at least be able to get to the surface of the water and tread water so that they can stay alive. I don’t know how many times I’ve had nightmares about my children drowning, especially after my daughter nearly died at age one. I had to empty a large amount of water out of her lungs before she could breathe again.

For this reason I feel that it is important for children to learn how to swim. Swim lessons can be expensive, and if you have young kids ages 2-7, I have some simple activities they can do in the bathtub to be ready for more advanced swim lessons. Once they have done those activities, they can learn to move both legs and arms to stay afloat in a doggie paddle. When they can tread water for a couple of seconds, keep increasing the time as they stay in one place. If they can tread water in place for 60 seconds, they are ready to tread water all the way across the swimming pool. I always provided some form of reward for my child to swim across the pool for the first time, treading water. Children feel proud of their accomplishment when they are able to go the entire length of the pool.

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After they are able to tread water, they are ready for proper swimming. The child can hold on to the side of the pool and kick his feet while not bending his legs. While swimming properly, the child’s feet should never go out of the water, so splashing isn’t supposed to happen. The child can use a floating board to hold on to while going across the pool, focusing only on feet being straight while kicking under the water. Next, the child adds dunking the face in, and breathing to the side while holding the paddle board. The reason you need the paddle board is that the child can’t focus on three things at the same time: the feet, the breathing, and the arms. The child needs to perfect each skill until it comes naturally, so that the child can focus on the next skill.

It helps to have the swim instructor swim right in front of the child while the child watches. The shoulders are supposed to come out of the water, and each stroke should reach as far to the front as possible. After that, the elbow is supposed to bend up, then back. One of my sons kept curving when he swam because his right arm was stronger than his left arm. He needed to try to stroke evenly with each arm to swim straight. Also, keeping the head dipped continuously is hard for some children, but this can be overcome while doing exercises in the bath tub, where the child feels safe.

For more information on easy swim lessons for the bath tub: Bath Time Fun: 49 Ideas for Homeschoolers.

Water Park

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

water-park-1

A water park is a super fun place to take your children on a hot summer day, especially if they are swimmers. If you have children who don’t swim, you can put some water wings on them so that you don’t have to be holding them the entire time. I went once when all four of my children were non-swimmers, and there was an area that was a shallow kiddie pool that had lots of things to do. So I stayed in this area with the kids, unless the wave pool was going. Then we all went over to the wave pool.

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A water park can be great exercise as you walk up the stairs over and over to get to the water slides. It can also be a bonding experience as a family. I would stay with the other children while my husband took one child at a time down the water slide. If your children are older, they can go down on their own. You can chat about life as you stand in line. Boldness or courage can be developed especially in your young sons. If they are scared about going down, they are going down the slide with dad or mom, and they can build their courage by experiencing the unfamiliar while clinging to someone they love. Sometimes children can become courageous in other areas of their lives, like sharing their faith, if they are able to take controlled risks in a safe environment.

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Children can practice their swimming skills and get exercise at the same time. One of my favorite things to do was to float in an innertube in the wave pool. It was very relaxing and calming. If you float with one of your children, it is fun to see their smiling face beside you as you float up and down on the waves.