Teach Your Child to Swim in Four Easy Lessons

I love teaching my kids new things.

Reading? No prob.

How to pray? How to cook? How to draw? Yes, wonderful, and I'll-try-my-best.

But teaching them to swim? Eh....I'd rather not.

I was really hoping to get them enrolled in swim lessons this spring, and even though we had to nix spring soccer to fit in swim lessons, I thought it was worth it.

I enrolled them at the Oklahoma City Community College, where a four-week class was only $25 each. They were so unbelievably excited about swim lessons. [You can also see that Emma loves her new swimsuit that has a skirt on it. She is all girl!]

We got there early for the first lesson and hung out in the bleachers watching the last group finish up.
When it was our turn, they gathered everyone together and shared the bad news: the pool had just been recently refilled and it was too cold to swim in. Instead, the group of 20 3-7 year olds were slated to have a pool safety class. Not cool. [You probably can't see Emma's face in this picture, but it cracks me up - she's all concerned and listening attentively to find out what exactly is going on.]
So then...we move to a different set of bleachers and everyone sits down to listen to 30 minutes of pool safety. While they all sit there in their swimsuits. And look at the water.

Talk about fidgety!

They did allow the kids to do two activities in the diving pool (which had not been refilled and was warm enough to use).

I quickly snapped this next picture as the girls were waiting to get life jackets on. I wish I would have gotten E&S in focus and the two other boys out of focus...but the moment happened in such a quick moment and I was so thankful I even got this. I loved what this moment spoke: sticking together, knowing you'll have someone next to you, there's a hand to hold when you aren't sure what's coming up next.
They were thrilled to jump into the deep end!
Emma with the skirt. Again.
Before they got to jump in the deep end, they had to practice rescuing someone using a wacky noodle. They hammered home the message - don't jump in to rescue someone! Stay out and help them to safety.

Finally time to jump in! Emma was first of the whole group and gladly jumped right in.
Samantha was a bit more hesitant, but eventually took the plunge.
She was proud of herself for being brave!
Pictures from future lessons to come...