15 Fun Swimming Pool Games to Enhance your Swim Lessons
Dhwani Shah
November 20, 2024
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8 min read
“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” ~ Fred Rogers
Splashing around in the pool on a warm, summer day—seems like an ideal way to spend a lazy afternoon! However, prioritizing safety in and around water is essential to ensure pool time remains safe.
Learning how to swim is a crucial life skill and teaching children to swim at a young age ensures water safety for them and those around them. Swim schools play an important role in nurturing water competent individuals. Yet, kids (being kids!) might not realize the importance of swim lessons, while some also tend to dislike the whole swimming experience because of the new, cold, unfamiliar surroundings.
As a swim school, making your classes engaging keeps children interested and eager to come back. When children are having fun, they want to keep learning! And what's better than developing and practicing indispensable swimming skills without even realizing you're learning?
Here are some fun swimming pool games to make learners fall in love with swimming!
These simple, playful games are designed for those who have just started their swimming journey. They are perfect to familiarize little kids with the sensation of water and basic swimming techniques in a fun-loving way, with lots of smiles and giggles!
Objective: To get beginners comfortable with putting their head underwater, holding their breath underwater and having water on their face
How to: This activity starts with kids holding their hands and forming a circle. They then run clockwise or anti-clockwise while singing the popular nursery rhyme:
Ring-a-ring o' roses
A pocket full of posies
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down!
On the phrase, ‘We all fall down’, all kids bob their heads under the water and come back up.
Variation: As the kids progress, you could ask them to hold their breath under water for a few seconds after the phrase ‘We all fall down’. You could also place objects at the bottom of the pool and have the kids retrieve them as they come back up.
Objective: To get comfortable with going underwater and with underwater observation
How to: Students are divided into pairs, and each pair takes turns going underwater. One player (the messenger) says a silly word or a short message underwater, which the other player (the guesser) has to decipher when both the players come back up. Kids will enjoy the goofiness of the guessed words and phrases.
Variation: You could try a Chinese Whispers (also called the Telephone Game) version of this game with a small group of learners. To make it competitive, divide the batch of learners into two groups. The group whose guessed message is closest in sound or meaning to the original message is the winner.
Objective: To practice kicking and swimming techniques, learn to listen to the coach’s instructions and be attentive in water
How to: You could play this game two ways:
Version 1: To begin with, have kids sit at the edge of the pool with their feet in the water or have them float while holding onto the pool rail or pool edge. When the coach says ‘Green Light’, kids start kicking as hard as they can, and the words ‘Red Light’ signal that they must stop kicking. You could also use green and red signs, placards or some sort of whistle to indicate the start and stop.
Version 2: As the students progress, let them assemble at one end of the pool. When you say ‘Green Light’, students start swimming to the other end of the pool (the finish line) and ‘Red Light’ means they stop and tread water. The first player to reach the other end wins.
Variation: You can add variations like using kickboards or having learners switch strokes when you say a certain word.
Objective: To practice swimming skills, reinforce techniques, improve body awareness and learn to follow instructions
How to: This classic children’s game can be seamlessly adapted to the swimming pool. The coach calls out ‘Simon Says’ followed by a swimming related task (“Simon Says, float on your back”, “Simon Says, swim a lap”). Players are eliminated if:
As the game progresses, the coach can start giving out instructions faster to challenge (and even confuse!) the kids. The last player remaining wins.
These are games designed for learners as they advance to slightly higher levels, where it’s important to reinforce and refine swimming techniques.
Objective: To strengthen leg muscles, practice kicking techniques, and enhance teamwork and coordination
Equipment: Kickboards
How to: Kids are divided into two teams and half of each team is positioned at opposite ends of the swimming area. On the coach’s signal, the first player from each team kicks across the pool and hands the kickboard to their partner, who then kicks back to the next team member, and so on. The team that finishes the relay first wins.
Objective: To enhance swimming skills and improve speed and strategy
How to: Sharks and Minnows is essentially the simple game of Tag, played in water. One player is chosen as “it”, the shark, who must swim to catch the other players, the minnows. The minnows must aim to reach the opposite end of the pool without being tagged or caught by the shark.
Alternatively, you could play a version where the coach is the shark and the learners are the minnows. The minnows are free to swim around the pool as they like, and the last minnow that remains uncaught is declared the winner.
Variation: Any minnow that gets tagged by the shark becomes a shark as well, and goes on to hunt the minnows, making it difficult for the minnows to outswim the growing number of sharks chasing them.
This variation is similar to the game Octopus, where each player that gets caught, forms a chain with “it” by holding hands. The Octopus swims together to continue to tag other players, who join the Octopus once caught. The challenge for the Octopus is catching the other players without letting go of their hands, while the other players must try their best to outrun the ever-growing octopus. The last player swimming is the winner.
Objective: To enhance swimming skills and improve speed and strategy
Equipment: Beach balls
How to: Learners must pretend to be seals and attempt to push a beach ball from one end of the pool to another using their nose as they swim the front crawl stroke. The first one to reach the other end with the ball wins.
Variation: You can add variations like having participants balance the beach ball on their tummies for a minute as they float on their backs once they reach the other side. You could also make this game part of a relay race or obstacle course.
These games are designed to challenge swimmers who have already mastered basic techniques, helping them combine multiple skills and increase stamina.
Objective: To improve underwater swimming skills, aquatic breathing and directional control
How to: Have teams of 4 or 5 (adjust the number to allow gradual resurfacing) stand in a line with their feet wide apart, creating a “bridge”. The last person in line must swim underwater (under the bridge) through their teammates’ legs to emerge in front of the line. They must then stand with their feet apart to become part of the bridge again. Each team member must repeat this till all players have swum underwater and crossed the bridge. The first team to complete the sequence wins.
Variation: You could place a trail of objects underwater and have kids retrieve them as they swim underwater. As skills improve, you may change the pattern from a straight line to a more challenging, crooked one.
Objective: To improve underwater swimming skills and directional control
How to: This game is the pool-version of Freeze Tag. One player (or the coach) is chosen to be “it” while the remaining players swim around the pool trying not to get tagged. Once someone is caught/tagged, they are ‘frozen’ and must stand in one place, with their legs apart and their arms straight up (like a popsicle), or tread water. To ‘unfreeze’ the popsicle, another swimmer has to swim through or under their legs. Players cannot be tagged while underwater.
Objective: To improve underwater swimming skills and aquatic breathing
Equipment: Different objects (rings, coins, toys, etc.)
How to: Scatter objects around the pool before the game begins. The coach blows a whistle to signal the start of the game. Children must retrieve as many objects as possible from under water within the decided time limit and return them to a designated area. Each object could be assigned points, and the player accumulating the most points is declared the winner.
Variation: Place pennies, instead of objects, at the bottom of the pool. Players retrieve as many pennies as possible and get to keep their bounty! For a team version of the game, divide learners into two teams and place floating balls of two different colors across the pool. Each team is assigned a color and the first team to collect all the balls of their color wins.
Objective: To improve front crawl swimming skills, strategic thinking, teamwork and coordination
Equipment: A pool ball and 2 goal posts
How to: Players are divided into two teams, each consisting of field players (generally six) and one goalie. The aim of the game (which is also an Olympic sport) is to score more goals than the opponent team by putting the ball into their goal post. Players can use only one hand to move the ball, either by swimming with it or passing it to teammates; they must not hold the ball for more than 30 seconds without passing or shooting. They cannot touch the bottom of the pool. The team with the most goals at the end of the designated time wins. You may modify the rules as per the difficulty level of the learners.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! So here are some fun additions to our educational swimming activities!
Equipment: Pool noodles, floats or rafts
How to: In this game, players must knock their opponents off the floating rafts using only their pool noodles; they are not allowed any body contact. Position the players on their rafts on either end of the pool and ask them to reach their opponent by paddling with their hands. Once they reach the battle zone, let the noodle battle begin! The first player to fall off the raft is eliminated. The winner advances to the next round.
Variation: You can play this game as a one-on-one battle (single elimination rounds or a best of three series) or as a group fight. In the group version, all players descend into the pool together and the last player remaining on the float wins.
Equipment: Pool noodles
How to: One player is designated “it” and stands at one place in the pool with a pool noodle. The other players stand at a distance in the shallow end. They bob their heads up and down the water as the player with the pool noodle tries to ‘whack’ them on the head, as in the arcade game “Whack-a-Mole”. The last player remaining without getting hit wins.
Equipment: Pool ball and net
How to: Pool volleyball is just like regular volleyball, played in water. Players are split into two teams. The game starts with a serve and each team volleys the ball back and forth over the net, aiming to score points against the other. The first team to reach the predetermined winning score wins. Standing and playing in the water makes it tougher for players to move around quickly, adding a challenging yet fun element to the game.
Equipment: Pool floats
How to: Racers hop onto their inflatable doughnut floats at the shallow end of the pool. At the signal “Go”, they race to the other end of the pool using only their hands as paddles. The first one to reach the finish line wins.
Swimming is a life-saving skill, and the benefits of learning and knowing how to swim cannot be overstated. Incorporating fun pool games and activities into swimming lessons works wonders in building water comfort and confidence, skill development, and of course, bringing delight to learners. So trying out these games and adapting them to your students needs is sure to transform your learners into confident swimmers.
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