Swimming Lessons

The past two years we have done swimming lessons at the Killearney Way Swim Club. It is convenient (like 5 minutes from the house) and fairly reasonably priced. I have really liked the teachers. Emily has had the same teacher for now three years. They get all the kids in the pool and ask them to do several things to see what level they are a, then they divide the kids up into skill level groups. The past two years there has been a lot of kids so they have divided the kids into four different groups. This year, there are only 11 kids this session so there are only two teachers. This causes the problem of not being able to divide the kids into many different skill level classes. There are kids that don't even put their face in the water to those that need to work on their strokes. Emily falls into the top level in that she knows how to swim and tread water etc but needs to work on different strokes and side breathing. John Daniel has come a LONG way since last year and is actually swimming really well. He isn't scared but I am not sure if he could "save himself" if he got pushed in and panicked. He can hold his breath for a really long time but doesn't understand how to get a breath or tread water while swimming and needs to work on floating on his back and doing the back stroke. Anyways, because there are only two teachers, John Daniel got put with the older group with Emily. So my four year old is now swimming the length of this huge pool and learning how to side breath. He is hanging tough with the other four kids and I guess at least he isn't stuck with the ones that are still getting used to putting their face in. We will see how the next two weeks go!