Home School Physical Education

Swimming

Why swimming is a good idea for a complete home school physical education program.

Safety

Being safe in the water is the number one reason to teach kids to swim. Kids should know how to swim well enough to stay afloat if they should ever fall into water. According to KidsHealth.org, drowning is the second most common cause of death from injuries among kids under the age of 14.

If your child can swim it lessens the chance of accidental drowning. Important!! Even if your child knows how to swim, don't assume there is no chance that he may get into trouble and risk drowning. Kids must always be monitored when around water.

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Builds self confidence.

Remember when you were learning to dive? The first time you made yourself plunge into the water headfirst? What a thrill!

It is quite an accomplishment for a youngster to gain the confidence to do this. Your littlest ones will feel that accomplishment when they can simply dunk their heads under. Especially if they are a bit fearful of the water.

Skill for a lifetime

Swimming is a sport your child can participate in for a lifetime. It also opens up other activities that would be unsafe without a basic swimming ability. Water skiing and boating.

Individualized.

Swimming can be a team sport... but your son or daughter would begaining a lifelong skill even if he never competes.

I recently came across EnjoySwimming.com. Learn how to swim properly with swim drills, and techniques.

Have your student set personal goals like,

• Swimming all the way across the pool so he can go to the "deep end"
• Swim laps with all the different strokes.
• Or for the younger set just be able to say "I can float on my back!".

Swimming is healthy for the whole body.

It works practically all of the muscles in the body. Swimming develops general strength, cardiovascular fitness and endurance. Swimming is a sport that can help tone muscles and prepare you for just about any other sport.

Water adds 12 times more resistance than air, so it takes more work to move through water than air. Your boys will come out of the pool tired and happy. Swimming is so fun you don't even notice you are getting a good workout.

Swim Lessons

Lessons give a great start to teaching your child to swim, but your children need to be in the water more than just 1/2 hour each day for 2 weeks in the summer. Swimming takes practice.

Try to see if there are other homeschool families who would like to meet once a week or even once a month for a home school physical education swim day. If there is an indoor pool available this can continue all year round.

I must confess I have not been very diligent at this. Yet with the lessons that my boys did have, and a few summer vacations at grandma's house (where she lives a few blocks from the pool) they have learned to swim well. It is a relief to me to know that they can swim.

Swim team.

If you live close to a pool check into joining a swim team. If we had lived close in to town I would most likely have my boys participate in a team. The competition can spur youths on to greater efforts.

A swim team can teach teamwork, sportsmanship, responsibility, and be a great social outlet. Challenging each other, and encouraging each other makes swimming a great way to spend time with friends.

In our case it would also have taught time-management, self-discipline, and goal-setting. Our town has a swim team for the local high school that meets every morning before school. Rising at 7:00 each day for swim team practice would build diligence.