General Lesson Plans

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Are you ready to plan your own lesson?

• Have you taught with the Daily Lesson Plans enough that you have them almost memorized?
• Do you have a bank of challenges that you LOVE and use frequently?
• Do you have activity progressions (activity 1 -> activity 2 with related skills) that you feel get the best results?

You might be ready to use the General Lesson Plans when you’ve answered “yes” to all the questions above.

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Breaking down the General Lesson Plans:

#1: The Activity Bank

At the top left of the page is a bank of activities you can pick from. These are intended as a refresher and a primer for you to start thinking about what skills you’re going to do in your lesson.

You are creating the lesson plan. That means you need to know what the testable skills are for the Level you’re teaching.

In this case, for Level 3, you’d be picking 2 related activities from the bank to get swimmers ready for side breathing.

Pick 2 activites, then, look down for a challenge.

#2: The challenge bank

Again, this bank of challenges is not intended to be the SOLE source for choosing a challenge, but to provide you with a primer, a basis to make a challenge of your own, or a refernce to refresh your memory.

Once you’ve picked your 2 activities that are related to a testable skill, then pick a challenge. It should be connected in some fashion to a swimming skill and appropriate to the swimmers you have in your class.

#3: The Testable Skills

At the bottom of the general lesson plan are the testable skills for that Level.

These skills should drive all of your choices when picking activities and challenges that are appropriate to your class.

Avoid making activities too easy or too difficult.

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Other important information:

#4: How to set up your class

Each graphic at the top right shows you how to set up your class. For a level 3 class you should be using a lane where you use the rotation method and circle swimming.

Make a decision about your pool, the benchs and support you have, and how to use the space you have effectively.

#5 Language and Instructor Tips specific for the Level

This section has important information for the swim instructor to follow. These tips are typically about crucial things you should remember that focus on one of the major elements taught in the Level.

In this case, for Level 3, you’d want to focus on doing a Streamline as part of every actvitiy before swimming strokes begins. The second focus is on how to breath; using the whole body to rotate and stay at the surface without raising the head.

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The Reverse side: A sample lesson plan; A GUIDE, not a mandate.

If you still need a reminder on how to craft and create a lesson plan from stratch, then turn the General Lesson Plan over and use the reference or sample progressions.

Again, note how it follows our standard format: Activity, Activity, Challenge from left to right; 1 progression per row.

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Remember! DO THE CHALLENGES!

Avoid skipping challenges. Never waste time at the end of a lesson for 5 minutes of “games.” That is lazy and poor use of time.

Do the challenges after the actvities. They are there for a reason. Use them. Play with them. Do the challenges.