Infant and Preschool Aquatic Program If your child is between 6-months and 5-years old, this program can help develop swimming readiness by teaching children to have fun in the water. Through guided practice sessions, children learn skills such as water entry, bubble blowing, front kicking, back floating, underwater exploration, and more.

Longfellow’s WHALE Tales Make water safety for 5- to 12-year olds fun and easy to learn! Longfellow, the animated whale, appears throughout lesson plans, color posters, worksheets, activities, and a video to teach about safe behavior in and around water.

GuardStart: Lifeguarding Tomorrow Help 11- to 14-year olds get a successful jump start into Red Cross lifeguarding!

Community Water Safety Stay safe in pools and other water environments including waterparks, lakes, rivers, and oceans. Learn about hazards to watch for, how to prevent drowning and injury, and how to rescue yourself and others if a problem does arise.

Home Pool Safety: "It Only Takes a Minute" Families can use this compelling, 20-minute video to learn how to safely enjoy their home pools.

Water: The Deceptive Power You'll develop a healthy respect for oceans, lakes, and rivers after viewing this 30-minute, documentary-style video. It uses real-life situations to teach about skill assessment, high risk water activities, and injury prevention whenever you swim in natural waterways.

Learn-to-Swim Course Levels
Only the American Red Cross offers six comprehensive course levels that teach participants how to swim skillfully and safely. The prerequisite for each level is successful demonstration of the skills taught in the preceding level. Beginners start at Level 1, which has no prerequisite.
Participant Accomplishments
Each level of Learn-to-Swim includes training in basic water safety and helping a swimmer in distress, in addition to the skills outlined below:

Level 1: Introduction to Water Skills
Purpose: Help students feel comfortable in the water.
Basic water safety rules • Swimming on front and back using arm and leg actions • Using a life jacket • Recognizing a swimmer in distress and getting help • Submerging mouth, nose and eyes • Exhaling underwater • Opening eyes underwater and picking up submerged object • Floating on front and back
Level 2: Fundamental Aquatic Skills
Purpose: Give students success with fundamental skills.
Moving in the water while wearing a life jacket • Recognizing a swimmer in distress and getting help • Submerging entire head • Bobbing in water • Front and back glide • Jellyfish float • Treading water using arm and leg motions Swimming using combined stroke on front and back
Level 3: Stroke Development
Purpose: Build on the skills in Level 2 by providing additional guided practice.
Reaching assist • Kneeling or standing dive (shallow dive progression) • Submerging and retrieving an object Rotary breathing in horizontal position • Front and back glide • Survival float, back float • Front and back crawl Butterfly-kick and body motion
Level 4: Stroke Improvement
Purpose: Develop confidence in the strokes learned and improve other aquatic skills.
Safe diving rules • Throwing assist • Dive from stride position or shallow dive • Feet-first surface dive • Survival float, back float • Front and back crawl • Elementary backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly
Level 5: Stroke Refinement
Purpose: Provide further coordination and refinement of strokes.
Survival swimming • Performing rescue breathing • Standing dive (diving progression) • Tuck surface dive and pike surface dive • Open turns on front and back • Front flip turn and backstroke flip turn • Front and back crawl Elementary backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, sidestroke
Level 6: Swimming and Skill Proficiency
Refines the strokes so students swim with ease, efficiency, power and smoothness over greater distances. Level 6 is designed with "menu" options. Each of these options focus on preparing students to participate on swim teams and in more advanced courses, such as Water Safety Instructor and Lifeguard Training. These options include:
• Personal Water Safety •Lifeguard Readiness • Fundamentals of Diving • Fitness Swimmer