“I want my preschooler (ages 4 to 5) to love the water, be safe, and build a great foundation for
learning the swimming strokes.”

Learning to swim can be one of the most memorable experiences of childhood – times spent splashing, playing, and swimming in the water, times spent with siblings, friends, and parents, and times spent exploring an environment that affords greater freedom of movement than children often can experience on land.  In our lessons, your child will not only learn safety skills and beautiful swimming strokes, but she will also learn to love the water.

At Chicago Blue Dolphins, we want our young swimmers to start with a strong foundation of basic skills before moving on to learning the strokes.  We've found in teaching swimmers of all ages -- infants, children, and adults -- that the process ultimately moves faster and yields better results if we start with a foundation of relaxation, comfort, and control before focusing on advanced safety and swimming skills.  To build efficient strokes and a complete swimmer, we will combine time in our Swim Studio with time in a conventional pool to work on deep water skills, water entries/starts, turns, and swimming for distance. 

More specifically, our teaching environment and approach are characterized by:

• Cutting Edge Teaching Methods – We work hard to design an environment that will rapidly teach key skills in a fun way.  We will use in-water coaches and parents, underwater mirrors, video cameras, and pool toys to effectively teach your child.  We apply cutting edge teaching methods and drills from such leaders as Total Immersion, Steve Haufler, GoSwim, and the Lifestyle Swim School to build clean, beautiful strokes that will make swimming fun and prep your child for a spot on the swim team
• Warm Water – We keep our pool set at 90 degrees to make the water comfortable for you and your child.  We've found that eliminating the blue lips and shivering helps everyone relax and makes the learning experience more fun and effective
• Group Lessons – We believe that children learning to swim benefit most in group swim classes, as they can learn from their peers and relax in the positive, encouraging, and fun social atmosphere
• Emphasis on Water Safety -- We bring the safety principles and framework from the American Red Cross's Learn-to-Swim program to ensure that you and your child understand the potential dangers of the water and can swim and play safe

At the age of 4 to 5, children are still a little bit young to learn the full-blown strokes.  The coordination and strength are just not there to do, say, the butterfly stroke and recovery.  These classes will teach the good breathing and buoyancy foundations, basic back and front strokes, and foundations of the four major strokes:  freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly.

Our pre-school learn-to-swim group class progression is:

• Preschool Aquatics (American Red Cross Preschool Aquatics Level 1-3)
• Preschool Aquatics Plus

Our Pre-School Learn-to-Swim program feeds naturally into our Child (6-8) Learn-to-Swim program.  Upon reaching his or her 6th birthday and completing to American Red Cross Preschool Aquatics Level 1 or Level proficiency, your child can enroll in the Child Level 2 -- Advanced Swimming and Safety Skills class; upon completion to American Red Cross Preschool Aquatics Level 3 proficiency and reaching his or her 6th birthday, your child will enroll in the Child Level 3 -- Stroke Development Class.

If you have a four or five year old who is very nervous in the water or who has had a traumatic experience in the water, you might want to consider having him or her do a round of our Infant-Toddler I class before doing the Preschool Aquatics class. The Infant/Toddler class will be a gentler introduction to the water, will involve more songs and games, and will focus on water comfort, facial submersion, and basic gliding. Getting these skills down will set a solid foundation for the Preschool program.