Toys


Floaters

There are numerous items available that can be used as floaters, including the solid plastic flippers to neoprene and foam-filled animals. 

Flippers have a specific use in building the swimmer’s confidence by encouraging them to blow in the water, thereby flipping the toy over. They and other floaters are also very useful in adding fun to swimming activities, including blowing them from one place to another, transporting them on a float, collecting them by hand or using a noodle to snare and retain them.

Bricks and sinkers

Pool bricks are useful for more advanced swimmers to practice diving to the bottom of the pool. They are heavy and not suitable for smaller children and have minimal value for play.

Sinkers are ideal for smaller children as they are light and designed to sit upright on the pool floor and so are easy to grab and hold. Furthermore their size and lightness makes them ideal for play, such as competing to get the sinker first, or to collect as many as possible in a single dive. They are also very affordable.

Hoops

Hoops are designed to either float just below the surface, or sink to the pool floor. Either way their primary use is obviously to encourage swimmers to dive underwater and swim through the hoop, encouraging confidence under water and promoting streamlining and accuracy.

As for play, two or more can create a more challenging underwater exercise, and one or more hoops can be used with floaters or sinkers to add more challenge to retrieval play.

Clothes

Clothes create significant drag and so make swimming harder. Clothes offer little with regard to play, other than to provide a little variety. For swimmers building up their stamina, lifesaving skills or who are engaged in water sports such as yachting, boats or other environments where they could end up in the water, being able to swim or maintain buoyancy fully dressed, or to be able to undress in the water, are very important skills to master.