TREASURE HUNTING

The kids from The Children's School come every week to swim in the Dixon Center pool. The children play pool games and have fun, but while they are enjoying themselves they also are strengthening their swimming skills. by

__!_aniceC. Funk staff writer

It is doubtful that the pool deck has ever been so flooded, or so cluttered. Pool noodles, inner tubes, beach balls and other pool toys, all sitting in great puddles of water, are strewn across the deck of the Dixon Center pool.

Laughter and cries of exuberance echo through the cavernous pool area. Have the students of Cabrini roused themselves early this Friday morning to swim in the 25yard pool?

A more oblivious passer-by may mistake the small swimmers for Cabrini students, but an astute observer will recognize the swimmers as children around the ages of five or six.

The Children's School, the early childhood center affiliated with Cabrini College, has garnered an hour every Friday at 10 a.m. as the time for their newly-formed swimming program for kindergartners. The program, designed by aquatic director Colleen Poole in conjunction with The Children's School, has definite goals.

"We believe in the education of the whole child," school director Ellep. Jackson said. "Physical education is part of that."

The group games that the seven kindergartners play with Poole, who joins them in the water, are physical and require the children to utilize the swimming skills they learn during their brief one-on-one sessions with Poole.

On this particular morning, the children's fourth visit to the pool, five girls and one boy of Kate ConnollyStauffer's kindergarten class are playing ''Treasure Island" with Poole.

The activity, Poole explains, is to swim from the wall of the pool to a raft about five feet away, upon which sits various objects. Each child takes one of the objects and swims back to the wall with it. The raft is guarded by another child, who acts as the "pirate" guarding his '·trea- sures." The goal of the game is to collect the most treasures by the end of the game.

From the poolside, Connolly-Stauffer explains the cloaked goal of ''Treasure Island." The activity reinforces the children's swimming skills by strengthening their muscles and breathing.

After three or four noisy and wet rounds of ''Treasure Island," the children scatter to their own activities. While the other children swim and splash, Anna, five, splashes and wades in the shallowest part of the pool, the handicapped-access ramp.

Anna, described as "tentative of the water" by Connolly-Stauffer, talks eagerly of her experiences at the Dixon Center. "It's cozy," Anna remarks as she floats leisurely in an inner tube. "It's fun to swim," she adds. Leaming how to swim is her favorite part of these Friday mornings, Anna says, sagely citing that swimming is "good exercise."

Roberta Menapace has been swimming close to the side of the pool, keeping Anna company. Menapace's daughter, six-year-old Samantha, plays with the rest of the children in the deeper end. Says Menapace of the program, "It's wonderful. They improve every day."

Emily, five, and Diana, also five, paddle up to Anna, both suited for the pool with goggles, inner tubes and arm-floatation devices. The two girls look as though they could stay afloat in the most turbulent of seas. Luckily, the girls, along with classmates Michael and Leah, are in the calm waters of the pool. They chatter so excitedly of their latest accomplishment, treading water, that they leave one wondering if maybe they are ready to take on rougher waters.

As the clock moves closer to l I, Anna has moved farther out into the pool. She soon paddles back to her post on the ramp, her face and hair damp for the first time all morning. Anna explains the wetness proudly: today, for the first time, she put her head under the water.

The response from both the children and parents has

These girls from The Children's School enjoy games and fun in the Dixon Center pool, as well as other benefits. been so positive and the progress so marked that The Children's School is considering opening the program to their preschoolers. This, however, would require many more people on hand to supervise the younger children.

Connolly-Stauffer, herself an alum of Cabrini's special education, elementary education and early education programs, volunteers her own solution to this problem. She would like to see students come over to the pool to help with the children.

She alludes to The Children's School as Cabrini's "lab school," where students can go to learn directly about children from the children.

The enthusiasm of the children, teachers and parents for the pool program is so great that it leaves one to wonder why the same excitement is not mirrored in the students on campus. According to Connolly-Stauffer, the children look forward to Friday mornings with a nearly uncontainable zeal. Perhaps Cabrini students' younger counterparts could teach us all how to enjoy the Dixon Center pool for the simple pleasures of camaraderie, exercise and pure fun.