UNITED STATES COAST GUARD AUXILIARY
OPERATION BOAT SMART
BOAT SMART KIDS
Safe Boating Programs For Your Local Schools
Facilitator Guide– KINDERGARTEN
Equipment: Boating Fun-Adventure on the Water book. Life jackets of all types, one throwable with a line attached.
Overhead transparencies of Pages 6, 7, 9, 10 & 12 For kindergarten children, learning objectives are focused on keeping the child safe
rather than on the child taking care of the boat or other people.
Learning objectives are:
1. Learn to swim.
2. Always swim with a buddy, never alone.
3. Always swim where there is adult supervision.
4. When riding in a boat, wear a properly fitted, brightly colored, Coast Guard
approved Lifejacket.
5. When riding in a boat, watch for things in the water that the boat could hit.
The lesson might be started as follows: Let’s pretend we are going on a boat ride! How
many of you have ever ridden in a boat, raise your hands? How many of you know how t
to swim?
First talk about swimming with those children who have learned to swim…where did
they go to learn, who taught them, etc. Let some children demonstrate different strokes,
teacher can demonstrate some too. Praise children who know how to swim.
Offer ideas about where to go to learn. Ask where should we swim. Talk about swimming in a pool vs. swimming in a pond or bay/lake water. Talk about swimming with a buddy and under adult supervision. Ask why one should do this. For each question allow children to answer and choose, from the answers, those ideas you want to emphasize to teach the objectives listed above. Ask why a person should know how to swim, work discussion back to riding on a boat
Distribute life jackets and ask children who have them to put them on. Ask why one should wear a life jacket while boating. Answers will include “because we don’t know how to swim, because we might fall out, because the boat might roll over,” and probably others.
Talk about how a life jacket should fit. Choose a small child and put a large life
jacket on him/her. Lift at shoulders and show how the child can slip through it. Show how it should be fitted and talk about wearing a jacket that is a bright 
color like yellow or
orange (rather than a dark color) so that it can be seen in the water. Lead a pantomime of
putting on the life jacket beginning with ”OK kids, let’s put on our life jackets.”
Go through the motions of putting it on, buckling and fitting the straps, checking it for fit by lifting up on the shoulders of the pretend jacket. Ask several children what color their
life jackets are.
Pick a designated place in the room. It could be a rug where they do reading or a place between certain tables or chairs.
Tell the children:
“Kids, let’s pretend that this is our boat.” Where is the front of the boat? Does anybody know what the name of the front of the boat is? Who would like to sit in the front of the boat and watch for us so that we don’t hit anything?”
Pick two-four children to sit in the front of the pretend boat and give them instructions about how to watch for things in the water. Preferably give them overlapping segments of the water to watch and explain why you are doing this. Perhaps you want to have them work in “shifts.” Later, during the progress of the ride, you can ask them if they see anything in the water.
Ask the children where they want to go for their boat ride and pick some place that would actually be reached in a short time. Have them make sounds of a motor for starting up the boat and going on the ride. You may wish to continue with conversation about the
ride and the place they have chosen or you may wish to bring the ride to a close at this
time.
For a summary, show the transparencies and have a short discussion about each,preferably with respect to the boating story in the pretend part.
Sample lesson plans and useful information are provided for various age groups as follows:
Boat Smart Kids Instructors Guide
Boat Smart Kids Public Information Page
Boat Smart Kids Presentation Formats
www.ratlines.com Revised: 12/18/07