Featuring World Class Curriculum
YMCA swim lessons help your kids stay fit, healthy and strong when they spend time in the water. But, most importantly, they will gain confidence and learn vital water safety skills that will last them a lifetime. Swim lessons are currently offered at our locations in Plainfield and Joliet.
Program Guides
* Please note: Members will not receive system credits for missed swim lessons. However, we will do our best to work with you to schedule one make-up lesson per session, if class space is available.
Youth Swimming Lesson Stages
Use our Swim Lesson Selector to quickly identify your child’s swim stage.
Accompanied by a parent, infants and toddlers learn to be comfortable in the water and develop swim readiness skills through fun and confidence-building experiences, while parents learn about water safety, drowning prevention, and the importance of supervision.
Stage A: Water Discovery
Introduces infants and toddlers to the aquatic environment.
Stage B: Water Exploration
Focuses on exploring body positions, blowing bubbles, and fundamental safety and aquatic skills.
Students learn personal water safety and achieve basic swimming competency by learning two benchmark skills: swim, float, swim—sequencing front glide, roll, back float, roll, front glide, and exit—and jump, push, turn, grab.
Swimmers of all ages are taught safe water habits, enjoy underwater exploration, and learn how to swim to safety and exit in the event of falling into a body of water. Activities, games, and drills, geared to reinforce learning, are utilized heavily as students progress in this skill-based approach to swimming.
Stage 1: Water Acclimation
Increases comfort with underwater exploration and introduces basic self-rescue skills performed with assistance.
Stage 2: Water Movement
Encourages forward movement in water and basic self-rescue skills performed independently.
Stage 3: Water Stamina
Develops intermediate self-rescue skills performed at longer distances than in previous stages.
Having mastered the fundamentals, swimmers in these stages learn additional water safety skills and build stroke technique, developing skills that prevent chronic disease, increase social-emotional and cognitive well-being, and foster a lifetime of physical activity.
Stage 4: Stroke Introduction
Introduces basic stroke technique in front and back crawl, and reinforces water safety through treading water and elementary backstroke.
Stage 5: Stroke Development
Introduces breaststroke and butterfly, and reinforces water safety through treading water and sidestroke.
Stage 6: Stroke Mechanics
Refines stroke technique on all major competitive strokes and encourages swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Stage 7: Stroke Mechanics
Designed for swimmers who love the water and want further instruction for future aquatics activities, these tracks feature Specialty Programs focused on aquatic conditioning, leadership, and recreation. To learn more about these programs, please contact your local branch.
To register for private or semi-private swim lessons, please contact your local Y branch:
C.W. Avery Family YMCA
15120 Wallin Drive
Plainfield, IL 60544
(815) 267-8600
Galowich Family YMCA
749 Houbolt Road
Joliet, IL 60431
(815) 744-3939
For information about teen and adult swim lessons, please click here. For more information about adaptive aquatics programs, please click here.
