Hi there, my name is Seve the Seahorse.
I shall be your Aquatots pal for your Foundation 3 course suitable for children aged between three and a half and four and a half years old. Us Seahorses have been swimming on earth for approximately 13 million years and we have a truly unique way of swimming using our curly tail to push us forward while we are upright!
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. This may need to be done gradually working up from dipping your little one's chin to begin with and building up towards fully going under.
As a young child, your little swimmer can look forward to lots of exciting skills in your nine week course. Our super fun jumping in from the side is a great opener to our classes, getting warmed up and ready for action. As well a nice mix of age appropriate paddling and kicking skills, we will teach your child to be confident to turn under water to get back to the side or to Mum or Dad and develop their breath control abilities with our Swim Breathe Swim for older children. Other highlights include going under to get a toy, life saving starfloats on our backs and our whizzing Rockets where we learn to push off the wall into a swim. Classes are finished up with our super fun running and jumping off the raft. This is great way to splash mums and dads.
As your little one is approaching school age, they may ask you start to let go of them as they want move through the water freely for very short distances at a time between parent and teacher. Your little one will soon let you know when they are ready for that.
Believe it or not but us Seahorses are actually fish and we have gills like a fish to help us breath under water. We get our name because our heads look very similar to an animal from land… can you guess? Yes that's right, horses.
As carnivores we eat meat and we use our super camouflage ability to blend into the surroundings to catch out food. We like warmer and tropical waters and our unique way of swimming upright is achieved using our dorsal fin (back fin) to move up and down. We use our small fins on the sides of our bodies to steer.
Our cute curly tail can grasp objects, which comes in handy when we want to stay still and not drift through the water.
Before we have babies, we may court for several days. During this time, they may change colour, swim side by side holding tails (ah how cute) or grip the same strand of sea grass and wheel around in unison in what is known as a "predawn dance". Eventually we do our "true courtship dance" .
Did you know after the "true courtship dance" the boy Seahorse carries the babies? A girl Seahorse lays the eggs in the Boys pouch on his tummy (like a kangaroo pouch) and he carries them around for up to 45 days before they hatch. Baby Seahorses sometimes float together in small groups, clinging to each other using their tails.
Next term, you will be meeting Solomon The Squid