Swimming and Co-op

We've been doing swimming lessons the past 2 weeks and T has learned to open his eyes under water and float with a kickboard. This is nothing short of amazing for him. He has Sensory Integration Disorder and water has always been a challenge for him. Imagine the sound of fingernails on the blackboard-- that is what water feels like to him. As a baby/toddler we would have a major fight on our hands with every bath. It took forever to get him into the pool, and even after taking preschool swimming lessons twice last summer, he wouldn't bob.

We went swimming several times during the fall and basically bribed him into learning to bob with donuts. Knowing he could earn a donut per bob to share with our family and his cousins finally helped him get over the phobia. But now that he has mastered that obstacle, he seems to actually be enjoying swimming and being in the water.

R has learned to backfloat and will go down the slide alone now. Yeah! I have my hands full with the two little ones, so catching him was quite a challenge. J and A both love water and are little fish. Hopefully when they are old enough for swim lessons they will still love it.


We also started our homeschool co-op Friday. I am teaching PE to the Class B, 7-9 year olds. We played junk food tag, where some of the kids have play junk food and if they tag you, you have to sit down because you are out of energy until someone with a vegetable or fruit tags you. We then played several other games and ended with water balloon volleyball and teamwork/cooperation activities with the water balloons. The kids had fun and I enjoyed teaching it. I also enjoyed the two hours when the older 3 were in their other classes and I could just read and visit with other moms and they liked showing off what they made and learned.