Learning and Raising Children in the Swimming Pool Instruction of a Three-year-old Class at a Preschool Facility

―Activities in a Pool by Feeling Buoyancy and Resistance―

Abstract

  Setting pool activities done by children on their own initiative while feeling buoyancy and resistance as the main theme, this study elucidated some of the lesser-known aspects of the raising and development of preschool students by presenting the outline of a swimming pool activities instruction and support plan for a three-year-old class developed by a preschool teacher, who is not certified as a swimming coach, based on a pool instruction plan created by a preschool teacher certified as a swimming coach. It is a curriculum to practice the instruction so that children in the childcare center can develop activities by enhancing their motivation in stages and evolutionally from play in the water to swimming. As the details, we consider to propose instruction targets per class including age development and dividing the instruction steps into three depending on the timing in order to achieve them. We considered that what children in the center learn and what grows in them in stages while they get into a pool for 30 to 40 min × about 30 times during a summer. As the result, “Experiencing comfort by moving body” or “Enhancing motivation to attempt to move body” as indicated in “Health” of the childcare details in “Guidelines for comprehensive type of certified center for early childhood education and care” was firstly embodied. Next, we helped for understanding of children in the center by speaking words that appeal to their symbolic function that is a character of children in the class for three years old. Then, 90 percent of higher of children in the center could achieve the target, “Floating on the water”．Finally, it was clarified that a preschool teacher can provide a childcare practice by which ability of children up to prone float can be revealed reasonably and as natural raising under instruction of play in a pool of the class for three year olds. Pool coaching for a three-year-old class induces the overall physical and mental development of the students. Furthermore, it is a preschool educational practice that is comprehensively related to the five domains of the Preschool Education Contents. It is important to keep in mind that the core of pool coaching for preschool students should be activities based on their motivation and interest instead of focusing only on facilitating the development of their swimming skills.