Sixty screaming first graders bounced around the floor of the Westview Elementary School gym, pulling each other across a blue tarpaulin and tossing an inner tube at an orange cone.
“What do you say?” yells Gail Cooke, a Choo Choo Dive and Aquatic Center water safety instructor.
“Throw, don’t go!” the kids shout back just before taking turns trying to ring the tube onto the cone, a “drowning victim” on the “water” of the blue tarp.
The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and Choo Choo Dive and Aquatic Center have teamed up to teach water safety to more than 3,400 first graders in Hamilton County schools. The lessons are ongoing between January and May.
Deputy John Scruggs teaches the class with Mrs. Cooke. The program is based on the American Red Cross water safety DVD, which students watch before doing hands-on work.