Teaching 5 year old to swim

susancs

Like GreenQueen's and Spendless children, both our children learnt to swim during the summer holidays intensive swimming course where they went for 60 minutes every day for 2 weeks and they were a similar age to your little one. They had been to "swimming" classes before and to pools with us but that was more about water confidence.

pinkshoes

Thanks for all the pointers.

I did ask about classes for older learners, and they start at 3.30pm term time, directly after the local schools finish. Unfortunately his school (we live in a village) does not finish until 3.15pm, so I couldn't get him to the pool until about 3.45pm, so we would miss most the lesson.

He is adamant he will not join the "baby" class, and I do not want to quash his enthusiasm by trying to persuade him - he is quite stubborn!

I am going to give the floating thing a go. I did try this the other day, and showed him a mushroom float and floating on my back, proving he wouldn't sink!

He seems to thrive on an element of competition, as he was insistent that he managed to swim the whole width before we had to leave, and he did! I actually had to persuade him to have a rest!

Brokeattheminute

We might have the same problem when our dd starts swimming lessons next month as shes quite small for her age and at 6yrs old she is about the same height as a 4 or 5yr old.When she was queing to register for swimming lessons 1 of the parents with a boy around 4yrs of age said to my wife'is your wee girl doing pre-school swimming lessons as well'When my wife said actually shes 6yrs of age the parent didnt know where to look.