Floatie Friends™ are the fun way to help young swimmers gain foundational swimming skills and water confidence.
- Build swimming skills
- Gain water confidence
- Multiple levels for progressive skill building
- Encourage independence as swimmers practice skills at their own pace
- Make learning fun with an engaging, interactive way to practice in the water
- Colorful fun design - kids love Floatie Friends!
Floatie Friends™ are an innovative series of progressive swim accessories designed by an experienced swim instructor to help young swimmers develop foundational swimming skills, muscle memory, and water confidence.
Based on decades of product iteration and tested on countless swim school students for efficacy, Floatie Friends™ help young swimmers learn skills faster and more accurately so they can feel more confident and have more fun in the water.
HOW THEY WORK
Floatie Friends™ are designed to help young swimmers get more confident and encourage learning independent swim skills such as balance, buoyancy, propulsion, and breathing.
Made of colorful foam and designed to be easily held by little hands, Floatie Friends™ swim accessories come in multiple levels of buoyancy to give swimmers the perfect boost to encourage balance, floating, propulsion, and breathing. As they gain more confidence in the water, young swimmers can decrease the assistance from their Floatie Friends™ and rely more on their developing independent swim skills.
Features
Each pair includes two floats, one for each hand. This helps swimmers find the right buoyancy and body position. Kids learn to put their faces in the water and kick to move forward.
Made with durable foam, Floatie Friends™ come in varying thicknesses to support swimmers at different stages of their learning journey.
- WHALE LEVEL 1: (38mm thick) Appropriate for beginning swimmers who can self submerge but need assistance with propulsion.
- PUFFERFISH LEVEL 2: (28mm thick) Appropriate for advance beginners who can self submerge and can propel themselves forward independently.
- STARFISH LEVEL 3: (20mm thick) Appropriate for swimmers who can propel with their face in the water and lift their head to breathe to implement rhythmic breathing skills.
- TURTLE LEVEL 4: (15mm thick) Appropriate for intermediate swimmers who still need some assistance with buoyancy.
- SHARK LEVEL 5: (13mm thick) Appropriate for swimmers who can breathe independently but need some floatation for reassurance.
- BUNDLE PACK: Includes all five Floatie Friends™
Also introducing Floatie Friends™ Mats!
Also introducing Floatie Friends™ Mats!
Floatie Friends™ Floatie Mats
INTRODUCING
Floatie Friends™ Floatie Mats
Meet Floatie Friends™ Floatie Mats, one of our favorite ways to bring even more play into learning!
These colorful floating mats create a stable platform in the water that can be used for practicing balance and coordination, building water confidence, creating obstacle courses, playing games, and finding all kinds of creative ways to keep swimmers learning through play.
Perfect for swim instructors, swim schools, camps, aquatic therapy, or even adding some Makai-style fun to your home pool.
Testimonials
The Floatie Friends Story
Floatie Friends™ were developed by Tami Nixon, swim instructor and owner of Makai Swim School in Napa, California. Tami has spent decades helping young swimmers in Northern California learn foundational swimming skills and gain more confidence in the water.
One of her favorite swimming memories has stuck with her ever since she was a little girl. Tami was apprehensive to swim across the pool and float on her back by herself. Her swim teacher gave her two floaty toys to hold, one in each hand. Holding on to the floaty toys gave her just enough confidence to swim across the pool and just a little bit of buoyancy to be able to lift her head up to breathe and float on her back on her own.
She did it!
Then her teacher gave her a “magic string” to hold on to. This magic string would give her the same confidence to be able to swim on her own even though it provided no buoyancy. Essentially a floaty placebo.
And guess what? She did it again! She swam on her own.
For the past 30 years, Tami has iterated on the concept of a hand-held floating aid, knowing how helpful it is for young swim students.
The typical wearable swim aids, such as life jackets and water wings, don’t help students learn how to swim. In fact, they create a false sense of confidence and incorrect body positioning in the water.
Kickboards and barbell floats also don’t help young swimmers build the balance and core strength necessary to move through the water, because these swim aids are a singular fixed position that both hands hold on to.
Her students needed to be able to hold an accessory in each hand, so Tami started working with milk jugs.
Yes, you read that correctly. Milk jugs.
Tami would give her students two empty plastic milk jugs. The caps would be left on to hold air in and create buoyancy. Her swimmers would hold one milk jug by the handle with each hand and be able to swim across the pool with perfect balance, buoyancy, and propulsion as well as be able to lift their heads up to breathe and roll over on their back to float. Just like she was able to do with her swim teacher as a little girl.
After milk jugs, Tami tried many more floaty objects until she finally designed and created the ultimate swim accessory to help her students develop their skills and confidence in the water.
The result of decades of iteration are Floatie Friends™!
Now swim school owners and swim instructors can utilize the same swimming aid developed by Tami Nixon to help young swimmers practice their skills while having more fun in the water.
Whether at a swim school or in the backyard pool, Floatie Friends™ are the colorful swim accessory that helps kids improve their skills and confidence. Learning to swim is more fun with Floatie Friends™!
Floatie Friends™ are not a life-saving devices. Please read our full disclaimer here.