Welcome to The Swim Lab’s Guide to Learn to Swim Equipment: Essential Tools to Make a Splash!
As parents, you may have noticed the variety of colourful equipment that our coaches use during lesson time. They range from the clearly fun (floating toys and cups!) to equipment for safety and confidence building (that big green mat with the holes!) to fins and floats of different shapes and sizes.
In this guide, we share more about the essential swim equipment we use here at The Swim Lab to make your children’s swimming experience engaging, exciting, and effective.
As Singapore’s premier swim school for kids, we at Swim Lab make use of an assortment of training tools to facilitate learning. From kickboards to pool noodles, these tools are an integral part of our teaching methodology.
Getting Ready: The Perfect Swim Attire
Our skilled swim instructor guides two eager young learners, armed with kickboards, during a focused swimming lesson.
Swimsuits
Before we dive in, let’s ensure your child is geared up for a fantastic swimming lesson. A comfortable swimsuit is the key to a smooth and enjoyable swim. Different materials offer unique benefits, so feel free to pick the one that best suits your child’s needs!
Pro tip: Have a child who doesn’t seem keen to go into the water? Check if their swimsuit is keeping them warm enough. Pools can be cold even when the sun is out, and a warm swimsuit goes a long way to helping kids enjoy class and their time in the water. We also recommend looking for swimsuits that offer sufficient protection from the sun.
Goggles
Goggles are a must-have for young swimmers! They provide clear underwater vision, boosting confidence as your child learns new techniques. For indoor pools, clear lenses work great, while mirror lenses are perfect for outdoor swimming sessions.
Cool and Stylish: Mirror Lens Goggles
Sleek mirror lens goggles are not just stylish; they are essential in our swimming classes. The reflective outer coating minimizes glare, ensuring clear vision underwater even in brightly lit pools. This clarity is essential for our young swimmers to navigate accurately, spot sinker toys, or align themselves with underwater hoops. Plus, their secure fit keeps them in place during energetic swimming, eliminating the distraction of goggles coming loose, and making learning extra fun.
Mirror lens goggles add an element of fun and style to the swimming classes! Kids love the cool, sleek look, making them more excited to participate in lessons and practice their swimming techniques.
Sleek mirror lens goggles, a favourite among our young swimmers, designed to ensure clear vision and stylish strokes during their swimming lessons.
Simple and Versatile: Clear Lens Goggles
Clear lens goggles are another essential companion for our young swimmers. With these, your child will enjoy crystal-clear underwater visibility, perfect for navigating the pool and spotting toys or markers. Their simple and comfortable design appeals to children, ensuring a positive and productive swim lesson.
Clear lens goggles are another essential companion for our young swimmers. With these, your child will enjoy crystal-clear underwater visibility, perfect for navigating the pool and spotting toys or markers.
They’re designed to work well in various lighting conditions, making them ideal for both indoor and outdoor lessons. The goggles fit securely and comfortably, staying put even during dynamic swimming activities, so our young learners can focus entirely on developing their skills.
Additionally, clear lens goggles have a simple, versatile design that appeals to children and instils confidence in them. By enhancing both safety and comfort, these goggles are essential in helping kids have a positive and productive experience in their swimming lessons.
Our clear lens goggles, an essential companion for our young swimmers, ensuring crystal-clear underwater vision and comfort during their swimming lessons.
Swim Caps
Swim caps not only protect the hair from chlorine but also reduce drag, making swimming more efficient and enjoyable. We’ve included a Swim Lab cap in every registration kit, so make it your child’s essential for every class!
Dive Deeper: Essential Poolside Equipment
In addition to basic swimwear, you’ll find many more swimming aids here at The Swim Lab, designed to enhance the learning experience and improve swimming techniques.
Kickboards
Kickboards are used as a training aid to isolate different parts of the body during swimming lessons. They provide support to the swimmer’s upper body, allowing them to focus on different aspects of the swim such as coordination, going for longer distances or kicking.
Kickboards can also be used to practice body positioning in the water and to build endurance. For instance, swimmers can hold onto the kickboard with their hands and keep their body straight while they kick. This helps them understand the feeling of moving through the water using only their legs.
Our Swim Lab kickboard, to aid our swimmers in improving leg strength and perfecting their kick technique in our swim classes – a familiar buddy to many of our young swimmers!
Pull Buoy
Pull buoys are flotation devices that swimmers place between their thighs or ankles. They help swimmers focus on their arm stroke and body rotation without worrying about their kick. Pull buoys can be particularly beneficial for swimmers who tend to sink their legs and need to work on their body positioning in the water.
They can also be used in combination with other equipment, such as paddles, to further enhance stroke technique.
An alignment board, kick board, and pull buoy poised by the poolside, ready to enhance our swimmer’s technique, strength, and stroke proficiency in their swimming journey.
Fins
Swimming fins, or flippers, are worn on the feet and help swimmers develop a stronger and more efficient kick. They also allow swimmers to move faster in the water, which can be motivating and fun.
Short fins are commonly used in swim training as they provide resistance without altering the natural kicking motion, helping to build leg strength and improve technique.
Alignment Boards
Alignment boards are designed to improve body position and balance in the water. They have a hydrodynamic design that helps swimmers maintain a streamlined position from their fingertips to their toes.
Unlike standard kickboards, alignment boards are shorter and have a stabilising hand strap, reducing pressure on the shoulders. They can be used for a variety of drills, including one-arm pulls and side kicking, to help swimmers focus on their body positioning, core stability, and balance in the water.
An alignment board, ready poolside, to assist our swimmers in perfecting their form and stroke efficiency in the swimming classes.
Toys (Sinking & Floating)
Toys are a great way to make swimming lessons more fun and engaging. These are often deployed to build water confidence and develop diving skills. They encourage swimmers to get comfortable with the water by introducing a fun element to the class. Pool toys in the shape of cute and familiar sea creatures are especially helpful in getting new swimmers feeling at ease!
Sinker Toys
Sinker toys, such as dive rings or weighted toys, are effective in building water confidence and improving diving skills. Swimmers are encouraged to retrieve these toys from the bottom of the pool, enhancing their comfort underwater and improving breath control.
Sinker Rings
Adding to their importance, sinker rings, with their distinct weight, make a perfect underwater objective, inviting young learners to venture deeper. The act of retrieving these rings pushes children to hone their diving skills, helping them familiarise themselves with the feeling of being underwater and extending their comfort zone. Moreover, these rings bring an element of excitement and sport to the process. As kids dive to recover these enticing toys, they are unknowingly practicing essential swimming skills like breath management, underwater navigation, and deep diving. In essence, the fun-filled activity of collecting sinker rings subtly equips children with key aquatic abilities, thereby fostering increased water confidence.
A collection of vibrant sinker rings ready to sink to the pool bottom, about to add fun, challenge, and skill-building to our kid-friendly swimming classes.
Floater Toys
Floater toys, like soft rubber animal bath toys, are excellent tools for getting toddlers interested in swimming. The visuals of these floating toys encourage young swimmers to move in the water using their arms and legs.
A collection of cheerful floater and sinker toys waiting to transform our kids’ swimming class into an aquatic playground, promoting skill development and water confidence.
Hoops
Hoops are used during swimming lessons as a fun and versatile tool to improve body coordination, balance, and core strength. They can serve as targets or obstacles for swim drills, helping swimmers develop agility, spatial awareness, and underwater manoeuvring skills.
Lastly, they can be used for games where swimmers have to stay in streamline underwater and swim through the hula hoop, without any parts of their body touching it.
A vibrant array of hoops ready to bring challenge and excitement to our kids’ swimming classes, fostering agility and water confidence through playful practice.
Underwater Half Loop
The underwater swimming half loop is a fun and exciting piece of pool equipment that we use to help our young swimmers improve their skills. Set up underwater, this sturdy, half-tunnel shaped tool turns swimming into a real adventure. As children swim through this loop, they simulate a forward flip before swimming off in the opposite direction. It’s like being a dolphin for a day!
This exercise not only makes them more agile and controlled swimmers, but also helps them better understand how to move underwater. And, as a visible underwater marker, the half loop encourages kids to focus on their precision and to perfect their flips. By consistently playing with the half loop, our young swimmers can strengthen their core muscles, improve their underwater techniques, and most importantly, build a whole lot of confidence in their swimming abilities.
Vibrant sinker rings and an underwater half hoop set up for our exciting kids’ swimming class, transforming learning into a thrilling underwater adventure.
Pool Noodles
Pool noodles are flexible, versatile, and buoyant solid cylinders made up of foam. They can be used as a float, pool toy, and water aerobics equipment. Sometimes, pool noodles can be used as an alternative to a kickboard. They can be wrapped around the body, teaching swimmers how to do flutter kicks, treading, sculling, breaststroke kicks, and backstroke kicks. Lastly, they can be used for creative play/pool games where they can simply ride the noodle or tow other swimmers.
An array of colorful pool noodles at Swim Lab, all set for an exciting and safe kids’ swimming class – where learning to swim becomes an adventurous delight.
Floating Mats
Floating mats can also be used for group games or water exercises to improve swim strokes and kicks. They provide a stable and buoyant platform that allows swimmers to rest, play, or perform exercises on the water.
For instance, swimmers can practice their balance by trying to stand on a floating mat, or they can use it as a base for water games. Floating mats can also be used for relaxation, allowing swimmers to lounge on the water’s surface and enjoy the pool environment.
A vivid buoyant mat ready to turn our children’s swimming class into a delightful learning experience, fostering skills and smiles alike.
Conclusion
Swimming lessons at The Swim Lab are designed to be engaging, fun, and effective. To that end, we’ve carefully chosen a range of pool equipment, used by our coaches to help our swimmers build their water confidence, improve their swim and dive techniques, and enhance their swimming efficiency. Furthermore, they can be incorporated into our lessons for games, making swimming sessions more enjoyable and engaging.
From kickboards and alignment boards to pool noodles and floating mats, each piece of equipment has a unique role in our swimming lessons. They not only make the lessons more fun but also contribute to the overall development of the swimmer. By understanding the purpose and benefits of each tool, swimmers can make the most of their lessons and progress more effectively in their swimming journey.
Remember, the right equipment can make a significant difference in your swimming lessons. So, next time you’re at The Swim Lab, don’t forget to make the most of these tools and toys. Happy swimming!
