Hi there, my name is Jonty and I am a JellyFish.
I shall be your Aquatots pal for your Foundation 1 course suitable for children aged between 18 months and 2 and a half years old. Us Jellyfish have been swimming for millions of years, so we can share our skills with you and show you just how much fun swimming is, even if you have not had much experience before.
Let me tell you a little bit more …
Exciting skills on this programme aim to build water confidence and a love for being in the water and aim to teach your child to confidently go under water. This may need to be done gradually working up from dipping your little one's chin to begin with and building up towards fully submerging face in the water.
Skills you can look forward to in your nine week course includes showing your little one how to enter into the pool from sitting (or even standing) on the side, paddling skills, turning back to the side to hold on for safety, using floats to practise kicking and learning to turn around under water back to Mummy or Daddy. All of this is wrapped up in lots of fun, at times we will use song and games to implement this. We will finish class with songs on the raft at the end, where your little one can enjoy launching themselves into the water towards Mum or Dad and older ones can try running on the raft and jumping in for the first time.
Us Jellyfish are really quite special as we have lived in the oceans for millions of years, even before dinosaurs lived on the Earth!
We like both cold and warm water climates. There are over 2,000 known type of Jellyfish all over the world and depending on the type of Jellyfish species, we can grow between 2cm and 2 meters!
As invertebrates (soft bodies no bones!), Jellyfish have no brain, heart, bones or eyes. Instead we have a smooth, bag-like body and tentacles armed with tiny, stinging cells.
We like to eat fish, shrimp, crabs and tiny plants, and we digest our food very quickly. This is so our bodies are not heavy with food and this means we are able to float easier. Top tip for you little swimmers, don't eat too much before swimming.
Our mouths are found in the centre of our beautiful bell- shaped bodies. From this small opening we can eat and discard waste. And it serves another purpose, too - by squirting a jet of water out of our mouths, we can propel ourselves forward! Wheeee!
Jellyfish can be different colours. Some are clear, but others are bright colours of pink, yellow, blue and purple. We can be bioluminescent, too, which means we are able to light up! How cool is that in the dark deep sea!!
Watch out of us in shallow water or on the beach sometimes. We don't mean to come close to the shore but sometimes we accidentally do. If touched we can sting, so best to tell a grown up if you see one of us.
Next term, you will be meeting Shannon The Shrimp