Creative Games for bath/pool while kids are home
Okay parents! As we are all looking for ways to engage our kids, keep them busy and active here are some fun creative suggestions I use frequently during swim time. Most of these can be played in the bath or pool or jacuzzi. Just a note about heating your jacuzzis - don’t heat it above 95 degrees. That said, it is often easier and more cost effective to heat a jacuzzi vs a pool so definitely take advantage if you have one. As long as its not pouring rain or thunder/lightning it is safe to swim. And of course this may seem redundant but I’ll say it anyway - these are suggestions that can be modified for your child’s age, stage, skill level. They are definitely to be played with an adult, not without.
1) The Underwater Toy Store - this is one of my all-time favorites. Scatter a bunch of different toys in multiple places around the pool (top step, second step, bottom, on the deck). Different ‘shelves’ have different prices. Use fake coins or even real loose change and the kids get to ‘buy’ toys provided that they perform a certain skill then they ‘earn’ their money and then can go shopping. This is one that can definitely be played easily in the bath too.
2) Building Ice Cream Sundaes - freestyle arms are called ‘ice cream scoops’ and the kids choose various flavors. (this can be done during actual swimming if the kids are advanced enough or even just sitting up on a step or in the bath showing ‘big arm scoops’ to get ice cream. Kicks are the whipped cream and bubbles are sprinkles. Challenge your kids to be creative about other toppings and how they could make them.
3) Visit the Aquarium/Zoo - this does require having some water friendly toys such as fish, or other sea creatures or other animals. Set the animals up on the deck in different locations. Take a ‘tour’ of each habitat and see what the animals are doing (BONUS: let the kids use their imagination about what the animals are up to and ask them questions to see how much they know about any particular animals) Use kicks as the motor that makes the touring boat/bus/car go and if they stop kicking, the vehicle stops too.
4) Throw a fancy party - this one is a lot of fun for kids. They invite a bunch of friends in the form of water friendly characters. Then take them to different spots in the pool for whatever they’ll need for the party; food, drinks, desserts, fancy clothes, shoes. Girls do tend to love buying makeup, getting their hair done, choosing elaborate jewelry (diving rings can be used as bracelets). Use back floats to get to one place, kicking and bubbling to another, gliding for another… kicking on their backs… basically any skill they can already do, use that to get them from one place to another. Either assisted or unassisted is fine.
5) Swim School! (so obvious right?) - Let them be the teacher and you are the student. They will tell you what skills to do and they have to demonstrate. They can also use some of their toys too. This is also a GREAT way to get them to articulate feelings about swimming - I often use characters as a form of transference by saying ‘hey this mermaid is feeling scared to put her face in or do a glide by herself. How can you help her?’ I get a lot of great insights into how kids are processing learning to swim through this game. Often the child will volunteer the information themselves such as ‘oh she doesn’t want to do that, she’s scared to put her face in.’ Then we discuss how to help work through that.
Hope these suggestions were helpful and have fun with them! Try your best not to correct anything your child is doing, just encourage and have fun with it.