Lesson 4 – 25 minutes
Learning outcomes
- Enjoy wading in and out of the water
- Develop confidence in the water
Preparation
- Water Safety Personnel (Recommended 1:1)
Activity 1
- Have water safety personnel in the water at knee depth.
- Line the participants up on the water’s edge (if you have a large group create smaller lines behind each other).
- Ask the participants to walk out into the water until they get to the water safety personnel then return to shore
Discuss
- Ask the participants to describe the difficulty of walking through water.
- Ask them if they know a better way to run through water? (someone will most likely suggest wading).
- Discuss why we need to wade in the water? (we need to wade because if we were to run in the water like we run on the beach it would be difficult because the water is hard to push our legs through, by wading we get our legs up and over the water)
Demonstrate
Demonstrate the correct technique for wading
- Swing legs out and away from body
- High knees to clear water
- Swing arms wide for balance.
- Ask the participants to show you how to wade by doing it on the spot
Activity 2
Water safety personnel in the water at knee depth:
- Line the participants up on the water’s edge (if you have a large group create smaller lines behind each other).
- Ask the participants to wade out into the water until they get to the water safety personnel then return to shore.
- Repeat this 3 or 4 times
Activity 3
Water safety personnel in the water at knee depth:
- Take the participants out into knee depth water and line up facing the beach (if you have a large group take one small group at a time).
- Tell the participants that on ‘Go’ they are to race back to the beach.
- Repeat this 2 or 3 times
Demonstrate
Ask the participants if they can remember how to wade from past lessons. Demonstrate the correct technique for wading to remind them:
- Swing legs out and away from body
- High knees to clear water.
- Swing arms wide for balance.
- Ask the participants to practice on the spot
Activity 4
Use the water safety personnel to create markers for the run-wade-run at knee depth.
- Give the participants the run-wade-run instructions.
- They start by running to the water.
- When they get to the water they will wade around the water safety personnel and head back to the beach.
- When they get out of the water they run back to the finish.
- Send the participants off in groups of 5 to complete the course.
- Repeat this activity 3 or 4 times
Activity Extension
Participants can be instructed to crawl, jump or hop around the course
You can also turn the activity into a relay
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