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Get a plastic baby doll that will sink in the water. One way to ensure this happens is to get a cheap, hollow doll from a garage sale or secondhand store, pop off one of its arms, and then fill the inside with pebbles or Plaster of Paris before putting the arm back in place. It might also work to simply hold it underwater and push in on one of the limbs so that the insides fill with water, thereby sinking it. Just try this ahead of time in a bathtub or pool to make sure it works. A third method would be to fasten a weight belt around the doll. Whichever technique you try, ideally, you want it to drop all the way to the bottom of the pool.

Have the kids congregate on one side of the pool, then turn the other direction while closing their eyes and covering their ears. (You can also play this game at the lake, but it’s much harder to find the doll.) Then an adult tosses the baby doll somewhere in the pool behind them. Once it sinks, the adult yells “go” and kids rush to try and locate the drowning baby. Whoever gets to it first wins that round, then play again.

There is no deep underlying safety message to this game, but it does serve one important purpose: It gets children in the habit of looking underwater to see if anything (or especially anyone) is down there.

 

Link: Baby Doll Rescue Game

A game to play at the pool that works on drowning prevention.

 

K: Water safety game for kids, Baby doll rescue game,

 


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