We love using swim fins in our toddler and preschool swim classes. These swim aids allow our little swimmers to experience great freedom of movement in the water; Providing safety without restricting the child’s ability to use their full range of motion. They also remove the need to be held by a parent, or hold a woggle, which many toddlers can start to resist. All of this helps build our little swimmer’s confidence and of course their strength.
They are perfect to transition from parent and child classes to independent preschool classes. We also really like that the swim fin grows with the children, giving them less support, as they need less. So at the beginning when they will tend to be in quite a vertical position, most of the fin is submerged, meaning they get a lot of buoyancy. As they transition towards a flatter and more streamlined body position, the fin comes right up out of the water, meaning it provides much less support. We love that the swim fin allows us to progress our swimmers, making it a one stop shop for many of our swimmers needs from little to big.
Some parents wonder why we use swim aids at all. The answer is that the whole time your child is swimming with their fin on, they are building confidence, practicing swim position and stroke, and building more and more strength so that when they are confident enough to take the fin off, they will be able to just go. And unlike lots of swim aids, the fin helps us get that swim position and movement just right. Some group lessons don’t use swim aids but you tend to find that is either lessons in pools where the toddlers can comfortably touch the ground. Or what we also see a lot of is groups of children siting on the side, or holding on at the wall, waiting to go into the water with their teacher so getting much less than their full lesson time where they are actually practicing their swim skills, and developing their strength.
Did we mention it looks really cool too? The fins are bright and colourful and the kids usually can’t wait to get them on. And with an affordable price point, our parents can also purchase them from us, for practise at home and on holiday.
If you’d like to order your own fin then please let us know. Or if you have any questions or woudl like to try one, please feel free to chat to your swim teacher.