Learning to
swim can be one of the most memorable experiences of childhood – times
spent splashing, playing, and swimming in the water, times spent with
siblings, friends, and parents, and times spent exploring an environment
that affords greater freedom of movement than children often can
experience on land. In our
lessons, your child will not only learn safety skills and beautiful
swimming strokes, but she will also learn to love the water.
At Chicago Blue Dolphins, we
want our young swimmers to start with a strong foundation of basic
skills before moving on to learning the strokes. We've found in
teaching swimmers of all ages -- infants, children, and adults -- that
the process ultimately moves faster and yields better results if we
start with a foundation of relaxation, comfort, and control before
focusing on advanced safety and swimming skills. To build
efficient strokes and a complete swimmer, we will combine time in our
Swim Studio with time in a conventional pool to work on deep water
skills, water entries/starts, turns, and swimming for distance.
More specifically, our teaching environment and approach are
characterized by:
-
Cutting Edge Teaching Methods
– We work hard to design an
environment that will rapidly teach key skills in a fun way.
We will use in-water coaches and parents, underwater mirrors, video
cameras, and pool toys to effectively teach your child. We
apply cutting edge teaching methods and drills from such leaders as
Total Immersion,
Steve Haufler, GoSwim, and
the Lifestyle Swim School
to build clean, beautiful strokes that will make swimming fun and
prep your child for a spot on the swim team
-
Warm Water – We keep our pool set at
90 degrees to make the water comfortable for you and your child.
We've found that eliminating the blue lips and shivering helps
everyone relax and makes the learning experience more fun and
effective
-
Group Lessons
– We believe that children learning
to swim benefit most in group swim classes, as they can learn from
their peers and relax in the positive, encouraging, and fun social
atmosphere
-
Parents in the Water (6 to 8 Year
Olds)--
If your child is between the ages of
6 and 8, you
will be in the water with your child and an active co-teacher with
us in the pool. This
parent-child format ensures that someone is always tending to your
child -- no waiting on the wall getting cold in these classes!
In the early classes, especially, your children will swim to you; as
a loving "swim platform," you can tailor activity distances
precisely to your child's comfort and skill level.
You will also learn how to correct the strokes to
promote correct home practice
-
Emphasis on Water
Safety -- We bring the safety principles and framework from
the American Red Cross's Learn-to-Swim program to ensure that you
and your child understand the potential dangers of the water and can
swim and play safe
The learn-to-swim class progression is the same for children ages 6
to 12. Due to differences in physical and emotional maturity, we
break our child learn-to-swim classes into two different age ranges, 6
to 8 and 9 to 12. Our child learn-to-swim group class
progression is:
- Level 1 -- Water Adjustment and Basic Skills
- Level 2 -- Advanced Swimming and Safety Skills
- Level 3 -- Stroke Development I
- Level 4 -- Stroke Development II
- Level 5 -- Stroke Refinement, Starts, and Turns I
- Level 6 -- Stroke Refinement, Starts, and Turns II
“I
want my child (ages 6 to 12) to love the water, be safe, and learn how to
swim with great swimming strokes.”