Tuesday, January 8, 2008

YMCA Homeschool

I said I would update on how today went so here I am.


We arrived fifteen minutes early so that they kids would have time to change. After they were all ready to go we proceeded to the pool to wait for class. I forgot that the pool's clock is five minutes slow so they were shivering and freezing by the time the teacher showed up.

The homeschool beginning swim teacher is a homeschooling mom with five kids. I was pleasantly surprised by how she handled my kids. She had four kids in class; two were barely swimming and my two who don't swim at all. She handed the two swimmers off to her husband (he was the volunteer helper) and gave all of her attention to my two. Sammy is only slightly afraid of the water. It really isn't a big deal and I expect him to move forward with no problems. He enjoyed the class and liked her. Mika is the one with the huge fear and the teacher handled her wonderfully. She explained that she herself had just conquered her own fear of water and learned to swim a year ago. She also taught her terrified adopted daughter to swim last year. So, she knows what it is like to be afraid of water and won't try to force Mika to do anything she isn't ready to do. Mika declared her the best teacher "even better than Amy" who was the previous swim teacher that she really liked before she got the one she really hated. She's looking forward to going back to swim class on Thursday. Yea!

After class we returned to the locker room to change and get ready for gymnastics class. It took us 20 minutes total...proof that I could never volunteer and pick the baby up from the nursery before the allotted five minutes was up. We headed over to gymnastics which is both a good story and a bad. It is good because, despite what the coach had told me, they are learning much more in homeschool gymnastics than in the evening recreational gymnastics. The stuff they had them do was much more gymnastics-like and harder. Think beginning to learn head-stands, hand-stands, cartwheels, and working on the bar vs. jumping on the trampoline, jumping/rolling in an obstacle course, and minor tumbling. It is bad for the same reasons. It is WAY over Sammy's head and he was in tears five times because he couldn't do the things he was being told to do. Mika was also in tears once because she couldn't do something that a couple of the other girls could do. I explained that they had been learning and practicing that a lot longer than her (today was her first time ever trying that particular thing). I also didn't care for how the one coach talked to the kids either. I think he may have a grudge against homeschoolers based on how to talked about the class, how to talked about the kids, and his tone talking to the kids today. He also happens to be the preteam/team coach and Mika wants to be on preteam. I'll be keeping a close watch on this, of course.

All in all, the homeschool program looks like it could work. I'll be keeping an eye on the gymnastics program and that coach. I'll also be researching gymnastics instuction elsewhere in case we chose to leave the Y.

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3 Comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks so muuch for the tips. I will come back and visit;-) My boys will be coming from a Christian school but there would still be adjustments for all us us, I'm sure.

And fun...that's what I want to make it. And now how? I'll be reading your ideas. Thanks!

Michelle Olsen Sasak said...

I'm glad that swimming went better for you guys. It's too bad that the gymnastics coach isn't more understanding, but hopefully he'll loosen up. If not, there are other places to take the kiddos, because them being reduced to tears is not good. You are such a great mom for pursuing all of these activities for your kids :)

Shadowfur said...

I LOVE swimming! YEA!