Distance Learning Activities | Pools and Water Safety

Hi everyone! We’re in our final weeks up here in NH. We’ll be starting Extended School Year (ESY) services after the 4th of July! So I have begun compiling end of the year distance learning activities that can easily be used for ESY as well. If you’re looking for new last day activities, I have been compiling a list of fun, teletherapy-friendly activities for the last day.

I honestly never considered teaching my students about water safety until I saw it recommended on Facebook by another SLP. Did you know that drowning is the #1 cause of death in children aged 1-4? As a mother, this makes me want to puke. I think I will forever be sharing this information with my students. I highly recommend looking into the Pool Safely endeavors, for they are sadly the only good water safety resources I could find.

This year, I worked with elementary and middle school students. Their goals ranged from following directions, vocabulary development, syntax, and grammar to social skills and fluency. In March, when we switched to remote learning, I was overwhelmed. I wasn’t much of a lesson planner… In fact, I was more of a “know your goals, grab some games, and play” therapist. My abilities to follow a child’s lead and target nearly any goal were a source of pride.

Unfortunately, teletherapy changed that. I felt inept. Deciding to build up my repertoire of easy to “grab,” virtual therapy materials, I started compiling distance learning activities and sharing them. At first, my activities were random, but I’ve found that using a theme gives me the ability to build up a student’s background knowledge and decrease the working-memory load of my lessons. Once they know about the topic, we can really focus on the language.

Distance Learning Activities| Books about Pools

Llama Llama Learns to Swim

I love the Llama Llama books. This one is all about learning how to swim! Llama and his Mama go to their friend’s pool to learn how to swim! Slowly but surely, everyone wants swimming lessons. Eventually, they all learn how to swim and they’re ready to go to the beach!

This cute little story about a whale in a swimming pool will be perfect and engaging. I’ll probably target verb conjugation, story retelling, and language cohesion with this one.

Videos about Pools and Water Safety

Okay – this video is really cheesy, but the information is good. They even make sure to rhyme! I’ll probably target rhyming and phonemic awareness goals with this one. At around the 4-minute mark, they stop talking about pools and begin talking about general water safety.

Laurie Berkner songs are really fun for working with younger elementary school and kindergarten students. This sweet little song gives tips on how to stay safe while swimming. I plan to watch this with my students and then summarize the rules. We might make safety signs to help them remember what they learned throughout the summer.

Distance Learning Activities| Water Safety Worksheets

Free App – Adventures of Splish and Splash

The folks at Pool Safely made a game “Adventures of Splish and Splash.” I honestly haven’t had a chance to look at this one and it seems to have mediocre ratings. If you end up downloading the apps for iOS and Google Play, let us all know in the comments what you think!

Free Worksheets about Pool Safety

The Pool Safely folks have these Activity Worksheets – Splish and Splash. If you go to that link and scroll to the bottom, you’ll see where you can download some fun crossword puzzles and other pool safety games.

There are also these Activities from Colin’s Hope, a foundation dedicated to a three-year-old who passed away from drowning (read their story if you need a reason to teach this topic to every kid you know).

Exciting News!

I am planning to keep posting content this summer! Initially, I thought that I would take the summer off, but I’ve heard from a lot of SLP’s that work summer school and in private practice. Let me know in the comments if you have any requests for a specific theme this summer! Next week we’ll be focusing on the beach!

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