I teach some kids an introduction to snorkelling (fun activity for the older primary school kids) but also adults before the summer snorkelling season. Weight bags are great for holding down hula hoops and keeping your hands free. When teaching buoyancy and control going through a few hoops at different levels is also great fun for the kids! I have seen a few variations of the weight bags but thought go through my logic.
The stuff I used were:
- Calico bags
- Smooth landscaping rocks
- Snap hook / Carabiner
- Cable ties
- You will need something to cut the cable ties, weigh the rocks and I used a glue gun to ensure the cable ties did not come loose!
Calico bags: were picked up from a materials / craft shop and may be marketed as “Loot Bags”. Time will tell if get a friend to make soe out of more study material!
Rocks: Were picked up from teh hardware store in the landscaping section. I went for some smooth 15-20mm stones (marketed as decorative stones). If did again would choose white and probably ensure washed to remove any dust)
Snap Hook Carabiner – That you will also get from the hardware store. Make sure the hula hoop will go onto the carabiner so you will find it is a larger one! I will see how long the Aluminium hooks last but ideally would use Grade 316 stainless steel due to the pool chlorine. I have seen centres that use another type of bag and pernamantly attached them with capble ties to hula hoops. I wanted something I could take off and easier to store (bothe the weight bags and the hoops).
Cable ties: instead of the string seems sturdies and unlikely to come loose (especially if add some glue into the cable tie join once zipped up). Larger ties (I used the white) essentially through where the bag string goes and a second smaller one (I used yellow to form a hoop for the carabiner which was hooped inot the white one!
Assembling: You will see I measured the rocks. Depending upon the Hula Hoops you use , if the air bubbles come out of them (i.e. have joins), if you have the hula hoop join at the top or bottom when dropping in the pool altering the amount of trapped air etc I found needed between 450g and 900g of rocks/ pebbles so finished up with 900g of pebbles for each bag!