It may not look like it outside, but I promise summer is coming! Here at the Aqua Life we’ve already turned our minds to Summer Intensive Swim Lessons despite the freezing rain!

You probably know by now, if you read my blog, that I LOVE all things swimming and that I think great instruction can really help your child get comfortable in the water, learn their strokes efficiently and keep them moving and healthy.

But did you know that our Summer Intensive lessons are secretly (okay, not so secretly now!) my favourite kind of lessons?

First, they can be a really great way to break up those long, stay-at-home summer days and have your kids learn one of the most important life skills. Having two kids at home all summer myself (who often sigh and exclaim how bored they are), I definitely appreciate scheduled activities that I know will help “tucker” my kids out.

Second, I like that Summer Intensives are more flexible than weekly lessons. So, if you realize after a week or two of lessons that you’d like to see your kids keep practicing and learning, you can simply sign them up for another week.

Alongside keeping your kids active and taking advantage of being able to extend lessons, there are three major reasons why the actual structure of Summer Intensive swim lessons (having lessons four days in a row!) benefits your child’s learning process!

Here is just one of many reasons:

Condensed Learning

The more often your child is in the pool practicing and engaged in learning, the faster they pick up their swimming skills. Getting in with a great instructor four days in a row (Mon-Thurs) means more mileage, and in swimming that makes a big difference.

Daily lessons for four days in a row make it easier for your child’s mind to retain the information. It improves muscle memory due to the increased repetition of the movements. It’s also easier for your child to pick up where they left off when the last class was only yesterday!

To give you an example, last year I worked with a 5-year-old girl, let’s call her Anna, in Summer Intensive lessons. Anna loved going underwater and was great at diving down to pick up turtles, but she lacked the technique and confidence to swim more than a meter. The first thing Anna and I worked on was straightening out her breath control, then we worked on having her catch a pop-up breath, then several pop-up breaths and finally we stretched the distance to where she could swim continuously. It was so much fun to see Anna grow in confidence and ability. (*high-five here to Anna’s mom, who sat by the side of the pool every lesson and cheered her on! You know who you are 😉

Keep an eye out! Why? Because we have two more important benefits to summer intensive swimming lessons to share. Hint: one has to do with sports and the other is relationships.