Kids Classes

You're welcome to wait in the observation room during lessons or in a chair on deck near your child’s class. Please do not leave the facility during lessons. For safety, parents are asked to keep their eyes on their child at all times before, during and after the swim lesson.  No one is better at keeping a watchful eye on their child than a parent.

Each swim student’s progress is evaluated by an Emler manager every four lessons, or once a month. As your swimmer meets the goals of their class, we will update you on their progress. Once they pass all of the goals of their class, we will promote your swimmer to the next level!

Level 1 is specifically for our infants who are learning how to swim. As a 4+-year-old, your child needs to be in an independent class (non-parent participation) with other children their age to see the most progress.

Every swimmer is different, but 99% of all students learn to swim alone within the first 4-5 months they are enrolled at Emler. Our award-winning curriculum along with our nurturing environment accounts for such a high success rate. Your child will be evaluated by an Emler Manager once a month, or every four classes, to identify if your child needs extra assistance to reach their swim goals.

Emler Instructors are required to complete online curriculum training and pass an exam in order to continue with in-water training. If passed, our instructors will complete 30 hours of in-water training beside one of our certified veteran teachers, complete an intensive In-Water Orientation course, and must pass an in-water assessment before teaching classes of their own. Emler instructors also participate in several H2O (Huddle 2 Optimize) Meetings a year. These meetings include new teaching techniques and safety improvements. EAPs (Emergency Action Plans) are also practiced regularly by each shift of teachers, so Emler instructors are ready for an emergency.

Three times a year, our swimmers come to class with clothes on top of their bathing suits. Students will start class by practicing their "Jump, Turn, Swim" safety skills to experience the sensation of being in the pool fully clothed. We want them to get real emergency experience in a safe and nurturing environment so they can increase their confidence in getting back to safety.

We teach with toys in our 3-year-old classes. At the end class, each swimmer will swim out to a final prize that they get to take home with them!

We celebrate your swimmer’s milestones in a few different ways. We’re big fans of high fives and celebratory clapping at Emler—which always brings smiles to the faces of our swimmers! We also give hand stamps, ribbons, and do other fun celebrations to let our swimmers know they are doing a great job.

Three times a year we teach children about boat safety. Your swimmer will learn how to yell for help, put on, swim, and float in a life jacket, and other lifesaving skills. These classes are fun for children because they get to sit in a blow-up boat and experience something different while also learning important skills.

We do our best to have the same teacher in class every week because we know it is important to build trust and comfort. However, we do periodically have substitute teachers in class if your current teacher had a planned vacation, isn’t feeling well, or other unforeseen reasons. Don’t worry, though! All of our substitutes go through the same training as your assigned instructor.

We teach a gradual progression of 4 different types of breathing in our Kids levels. Those 4 will be a front breath, a rollover breath, a rolling breath and a side breath. We believe it is important for children to be able to learn multiple ways of breathing when they are swimming.

Emler incorporates fins during swim lessons because they assist in the improvement of body position, and they enhance propulsion through the water. The younger the swimmer is, the more important kicking correctly is.

Each semester, students are introduced to new strokes and longer distances than they have swum before. Utilizing fins near the beginning of a semester will give extra propulsion so the students can accomplish new strokes and longer distances. As the students become more proficient in swimming, we remove one fin and eventually both fins to ensure they master the techniques.

We introduce treading water in Level 8.

We teach children to do a rollover breath so they know how to breathe if they ever get tired while swimming.