Being able and comfortable going underwater is one of the key skills for swimming. One way to acquire this skill is by playing a retrieval game. The rules are simple: throw something that will sink (dive rings or sticks are perfect) into the water and ask the child to retrieve them.

How to play:
*Throw the rings onto the pool stairs so that the child can retrieve them without going underwater.
*Slowly start moving the rings into deeper water.
*As the child gets more comfortable, ask them to retrieve more than one ring per dive.
*When you first start playing, let the child watch as you throw the rings into the pool. As the child gets more comfortable, have them close their eyes or turn around as you throw the rings into the water.
*Many children are uncomfortable opening their eyes underwater without goggles. Have the child wear swim goggles when they first start to play.

Involve many children in the same game:
*Assign a color to each child and ask them retrieve only their color.
*Have each child retrieve all of the rings as an individual. You can time them with a stop watch so the children can race against each other.
*Be careful sending the group into the water without specific instructions. You don’t want underwater fights for rings.

You can play with anything that will sink:
*Use dive rings or sticks that can be purchased at stores like Target or WalMart.
*Use rocks found around your yard.
*To make the game more difficult use coins. Make it even more difficult by asking older children to bring up a certain amount of money.

Final tips:
*Don’t forget to encourage the child to try again when they come up empty handed.
*Playing this game involves comfort going underwater and holding one’s breath. Both of those skills take time to develop.
*Don’t forget to have fun (perhaps you’ll like playing too)!

Diving is one of the hardest swim skills to teach, especially diving from a block. This game, simply named “Diving in,” will help to teach proper diving technique. Depending on the age of the swimmer, they can either dive from the block or from the edge of the pool.

1) Have all of your swimmers line up at the edge of the pool in two lines (behind two blocks if they are using them).

2) Get into the pool with a hula hoop and submerge it under water. You should hold the hula hoop at a shallow depth to serve as a target for each diver. (Make sure to hold the loop loosely, so that it will simply be pushed out of the way if a swimmer crashes into it).

3) Have a swimmer from each line dive one at a time and try to go through the target. If the swimmer dives at the appropriate depth and with correct technique through the hula hoop, they get to swim on to the other side of the pool. If not, they have to get back in line and try again.

As they get more comfortable, encourage your swimmers to dive in from the block if they are not already doing so.

4) The first team that gets all of there members to the other side of the pool wins!

To modify this game, have each swimmer that misses tread water in the middle of the pool, each team member that dives in correctly can “save” one of them and swim with them to the other side. This addition is probably only best for older swimmers. You can also have the swimmers have to go back and forth multiple times before winning the game or add tokens at the bottom of the pool that they must collect to win. The options are endless!