Hop, Skip, 'n' a Splash

I have been trying to find fun things the boys and I can do outside as well as inside on rainy days. The boys went over to a friends house to play for a few hours on Wednesday, and became completely obsessed with the game of hopscotch. I found a hopscotch mat at target, that was similar to the one they had been playing with at their friends house, and wouldn't you know, it was on sale. As soon as we walked in the door the boys were ripping it out of the bag. At first Ian would just skip the whole way down the mat. So I explained to him how he should jump on each square, legs together or legs apart, and after that I couldn't get him to stop jumping. Sometimes he wouldn't even wait his turn.

I told Colin that 4 year-olds had to do things a little differently. He had to practice jumping from one foot to two feet, and so on.

He had troubles with it at first, but his balanced improved with every pass he made. After hopscotch, it was time for Colin's last swimming lesson of this session. Colin couldn't wait! The last day is the only day the kids get to ride the water slide. When we got to the Y we learned that someone had gotten sick in the leisure pool where Colin has his lesson, and where they ride the water slide, so Colin's class was going to move to the big pool. This also meant no water slide. Bummer! Because the the kids are just beginners they had to wear life jackets in the big pool. It made for quite and interesting lesson. The kids still worked on floating on their back,

and floating on their stomachs.

They also got to do a lot of swimming by themselves, because of their life jackets.

Then, because this is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the kids practiced boat safety.

Colin loved this. Once they pulled the kids into the open water the teachers pass the boat back and forth.

They were probably standing at least 20 feet apart when they did this. Colin had a smile on his face the whole time. Next week Colin gets to move up a class. I am so glad he has taken to swimming the way that he has.