Parent and Child Aquatics
Age 6 months – 3 years
Infants and Tots learn water awareness, basic swimming skills and swimmer safety. Parents are the key to fun and must participate in the water. If 3 year olds are not ready to be away from the parent and still need the parent in the water with them, then this class is for them.
Preschool Starfish
Age 3 – 4 years
Starfish learn water awareness, basic aquatic skills, and swimmer safety. Students learn elementary aquatic skills they build on as they progress through the learn to swim program. This program also gets students ready for working on skills like paying attention, listening to instruction, learning the skills at their pace, being in a learning environment and gets them ready for Advanced Starfish. 3 year olds must be ready not to have a parent in the water with them.
Preschool Advanced Starfish
Age 4 – 5 years
Advanced Starfish are comfortable in the water and are ready to learn advanced aquatic skills that will get them ready for level 1 when they turn 6 years old. Students will learn swimming on front and back with and without support, breath control, entering/exiting the water in a safe manner and swimmer safety. Students must have taken a Starfish class or be evaluated by a Water Safety Instructor to see if they fit into this class.
Learn to Swim Program
Level 1: Introduction to Water Skills
Age 6 or older
Level 1 covers water awareness, basic swimming skills, floating and swimming on front and back with or without support, breath control, fully submerge face, entering/exiting water with and without support, and swimmer safety. Students will learn elementary aquatic skills, which they build on as they progress through the six Learn to Swim levels. Some students will have some experience with the water and may begin the program at a higher level if the water safety instructor feels they can advance.
Level 2: Fundamental Aquatic Skills
Must be able to demonstrate all skills from Level 1 – Age 6 and older
The objective of level 2 is to give students success with fundamental skills. Students learn to float without support and to recover to a vertical position. This level marks the beginning of true locomotive skills like learning the front crawl with a pattern of pull, pull, breath, swimming on their back using a finning motion, bobbing to safety, becoming confortable in deeper debth of water, and learning the beginning steps of swimming the back crawl. Adds to the self-help and basic rescue skills learned in level 1.
Level 3: Stroke Development
Must be able to demonstrate all skills from Level 2 – Age 6 and older
The objective of level 3 is to build on the skills in level 2 by providing additional guided practice and building endurance. In this level, students learn to coordinate the front crawl and back crawl for a distance. Students are introduced to the elements of swimming on their side, elementary backstroke, scissors kick, dolphin kick and the fundamentals of treading water. Students will learn rules for headfirst entries and begin to learn to enter the water headfirst from the side of the pool. Further exploring swimming in deeper depth of water. Additional safety skills will be presented.
Level 4: Stroke Improvement
Must be able to demonstrate all skills from Level 3 – Age 8 and older
The objective of level 4 is to develop confidence in the strokes learned thus far and to improve other aquatic skills. Students increase their endurance by swimming familiar strokes (front and back crawl) for greater distances. Students continue to build on the elementary backstroke and the teacher introduces the butterfly, breaststroke and more elements of the sidestroke. Basics of turning at a wall are also introduced. Build on more steps of headfirst diving skills. Additional safety skills will be presented.
Level 5: Stroke Refinement
Must be able to demonstrate all skills from Level 4 – Age 8 and older
The objective of level 5 is coordination and refinement of strokes. Participants refine their performance of all the strokes (front and back crawl, butterfly, breaststroke, elementary backstroke and sidestroke) and increase their distances. Flip turns on the front and back are also introduced.
Level 6: Swimming and Skill Proficiency
Must be able to demonstrate all skills from Level 5 – Age 9 and older
The objective of level 6 is to refine strokes to students swim them with more ease, efficiency, power and smoothness over greater distances. This is also the time to introduce other aquatic activities. Level 6 is designed with 3 options: Personal Water Safety, Fundamentals of Diving, and Fitness Swimmer. Each of these options focus on preparing students to participate in more advanced courses, such as Water Safety Instructor Aid or other aquatic activities, such as competitive swimming or diving.
