POOL SCHOOL
“Buoyancy, floating, weightlessness. Freedom. These are the words we use to talk about swimming. Is it a coincidence that this is also the language we use to talk about the lightness of being, the wellness of being, that we strive for in this corporeal world?”
― Bonnie Tsui
Kail at three years old about to jump in
Summer school is pool school. For Kail, swimming comes naturally. Like most things, he learned, naturally. The kid never had a swim lesson. He never wore water wings or life jackets.
My sweet little chunky baby loved the water since birth
By two years old, Kail was making his way through the water. He would mostly swim underwater coming up just for breaths. By the end of his second year he could swim all the way across the pool by himself.
We are members at Marinwood Pool. We are there four to five days a week. Everyday, someone comments on how Kail “swims like a fish.” At five years old Kail can dive, do front flips, touch the bottom of the 11 feet deep water with his hand, and swim laps.
All this isn’t to brag on his skills, although I am a proud Mama! When I say summer school is pool school, I’m not mincing words. The pool is our school as we do year round learning.
What an incredible activity swimming is. The most obvious is it’s a full body workout. Swimming is physical education at its finest. My little man is so strong! Swimming enhances muscle strength, cardiovascular health, and flexibility. In addition it helps develop gross and fine motor skills, balance, and coordination. Swimming naturally teaches breath control. What beautiful things to have a core understanding of at such a young age. As the saying goes, “without our health we have nothing.”
Kail is confident in the water. I don’t have to watch him any more closely than I would a twelve year old in the water (of course I’m nearby and keeping an eye on him.) He loves to challenge himself. He dives deeper and deeper, jumps higher and higher, and swims faster and faster everyday.
Kail in his happy place
He gets so much “socialization” there. It’s funny how socialization always comes up when you tell someone that you do any form of homeschooling. At school, they are expected to sit a desk, quietly, only really socializing at lunch or on the playground. At most school playgrounds, playtime is only 1/2 an hour and they aren’t even allowed to run anymore. Everyday Kail finds a new friend or group of friends to play with (or finds one he already knows.) This could be with toddlers on his occasional visit to the tot pool, with children near his age in the shallow end where they mostly hang out, or with older kids, teens, lifeguards, and adults in the deep end. He can talk to any one. 1 years old or 100 years old, he will find something to chat to you about.
Kail with Camden and Ellory, two of his favorite MarinWood lifeguards.
He knows and loves all the lifeguards.
We love doing our little weekly projects and our latest one was “The Lifeguard Kookie Poll.” He asked each lifeguard what their favorite cookie was between chocolate chip, sprinkles, and peanut butter. He sounded out their names and wrote them down in his book on the corresponding pages. I didn’t correct him on spelling. He is still learning and right now we are all about the sounds. We took the poll on a weekend day and a week day to try and get as many lifeguards involved as possible. All together, he sounded out and wrote down 23 lifeguard names.
Kail and Camden holding Kail’s “Lifeguard Kookie Poll Book”
Then, we had a home day where we baked all three kinds of cookies. In this process we tested our baking soda and baking powder for efficiency, measured ingredients, sounded out recipe words, and did all the “school-y” stuff that comes along with baking.
He made little drawings for a few of the lifeguards. We put their names and desired cookies in a bag and delivered them. We made some lifeguards happy.
cookie bags with drawings
If you’re anywhere near Marin county I would highly recommend Marinwood Pool. All of the folks who work there are top notch, the music is fire, and the frozen bananas are homemade. Kail says, “don’t forget about the water slides, they are super fun.”
It’s all learning.