Grateful for the Routines at Goldfish Swim School

We have been attending swim lessons at Goldfish Swim School for nearly eight months. Each week, I see growth and development, not only in my daughter’s swimming abilities, but in her understanding of the routine of the lesson. She hears a special word, hears a song, or sees a prop, and I see her face light up as she wiggles her little body in anticipation of what is to come. Goldfish Swim School does a wonderful job of following a similar lesson plan week to week, which allows my daughter to learn the routine of the lesson. This routine is extremely important in helping eliminate her insecurities about swimming and increasing her awareness of cause and effect relationships during the swim lesson activities. Listed below are a few ways my daughter thrives on routine and demonstrates anticipation during her swim lessons at Goldfish Swim School supports are listed below.

We are extremely fortunate that our main routine each week is seeing our dedicated and consistent swim instructor, Miss Mary. When we are walking into the pool area, I ask my daughter if she is ready to see Miss Mary. She nods her head, says, “Yes!,” and scans the pool for her instructor. In the past eight months, Miss Mary has been a consistent, positive presence in my daughter swimming lessons. For this, we are grateful.

At the beginning of each lesson, Miss Mary dumps a tupperware container full of plastic balls into the water. When my daughter sees this, she knows it is time to work on her reach and pulls. This consistent activity has led to amazing growth in her ability to make unprompted swimming strokes in the water. In anticipation, she has recently started searching for the blue barbell floatation devices on the pool deck to assist in this activity.

Duck cups are used weekly to condition your child for having her body in the water. As soon as my daughter sees these cups come out, she knows just what to do. She reaches out and starts pouring water over her body. She loves this activity and cheers with excitement throughout. As a matter of fact, it takes a lot of prompting from Mom or Dad for her to hand over the cup when the activity is done. 🙂

Another routine at our swimming lessons involves having the kiddos cross over a mat (either crawling of walking) in the pool to demonstrate water independence. During the first few lessons at Goldfish, my girl did not want to separate from me to cross the mat. With consistent, weekly exposure to the green mat, she went from slowly moving across with my assistance, to crawling independently, to walking across (no big deal!).

We have been attending swim lessons regularly enough for my daughter to even anticipate what to do with the special props. On special occasions, the big rubber ducks come out to play! Through her routine of of the previously mentioned “reach and pull” activity with the balls, she is able to understand that she needs to reach out to grab the duck and pull him in to catch him.

It has been truly amazing to watch my daughter learn the routine of her lesson at Goldfish. Each week she demonstrates anticipation for each activity and it’s obvious how much she (and me, too) looks forward to each lesson.

The Details: We are currently in the Goldfish Mini 2 class at Goldfish Swim School. We attend lessons at the Goldfish Swim School in Dublin, Ohio. Check out the link for location, address/telephone details and how to sign up for lessons.

Disclaimer: We were provided free swimming lessons by Goldfish Swim School in exchange for collaborating blog posts. All thoughts and opinions are my own.