She had such a blast learning all the dance warm ups! We enjoyed so much watching her trying out something new, and doing so well at it! We were instantly impressed at how much better she payed attention to her teacher, Miss. Julianna! At our night class we've been having problems with her running off to other stations, and not sharing the equipment. Her and her friends Issiah and Elizabeth often feed off of each other too, making for a very "high energy" class! We've never been overly impressed with Mr. Jake as her teacher either (he's nice enough, and the kids love him, but I just feel like he never gave her enough positive reinforcement, and never came out after class to tell the parents how the kids were doing in the gym. ) None of this was a problem at the dance class! She very intently listens to Miss. Julianna, and tries very hard to follow along! We even noticed she was following directions better in the gym part of the class! (The class spends 15 minutes doing ballet, 15 minutes doing tap, then 30 minutes in the gym) We heard Miss. Julianna several time praise all the girls in the class, and after she came out and told us how much fun Lily was doing, and how great she did! (Those are the types of things we as parents love to see and hear!!) We left her first class on cloud nine, but with a big decision to make. To transfer her or not?! See, while we all really felt that the Jazzy Bugs was a good fit for her, and were very happy with how well she followed directions, we still were a little sad about leaving her night time class! She loves her friends Issiah and Elizabeth, and has made some other great friends in her class...and while Sean and I may not be all that impressed with Mr. Jake as a teacher, Lily loves him! And I also worried that she wouldn't get enough time in the gym if her time was divided. I still worry about that one! And moving to the dance class would mean giving up our Saturday's to the gym again, since the class isn't until the middle of the day. Ultimately the choice was left up to Lily though. It was pretty clear what she wanted to do though...she practiced her tap dancing all week! We made it clear to her that this meant Issiah wouldn't be in her class anymore, and while she's sad, she is ok with that. She really just wants to dance, and that was her decision. So as of today, Lily is a Jazzy Bug! She had her second class today, and it was just as much fun as the first! It really put us at ease...I think we all made the right decision to switch her! And for at least the time being, we don't have to say goodbye to Issiah and her friends at night, because we have 9 make up classes stored up from the last few years (I knew there was a reason we weren't making them up yet!). We worked it out with Miss. Linda so that Lily uses those make ups to go to her Funny Bugs class every other week. Great compromise! I'm really excited about this change for her though! She's doing so well, and is so happy! We're very proud of our new little ballerina!
As for the twins, they have also started going to Little Gym classes!!! We are so excited for them! And for us too...we really missed parent child classes, and the wonderful Miss. Lori! The girls are the cutest Little Birds! We have had 3 classes together so far. We have been pretty surprised at how both girls reacted to the class though. We really expected Ella to be super shy and clingy, and for Violet to barely pay us any attention at all, and to just have a blast in the gym! We had it completely opposite though! Ella LOVES the class!! So much so in fact that this morning at the beginning of class, Ella ran up to Miss. Lori and gave her a big hug! Totally shocked us all!| She's been having so much fun in the class! She loves warm up on the big red mat, and laughs hysterically when we all run! She has done a great job following along during group activities, and is always willing to try the new teacher lead skill activities! She's tried walking on the beam, jumping off the big gym equipment block, doing forward rolls on the cheese, holding onto the bar, and today did a forward roll over the round gym equipment (not sure what to call that!)! She's been social with the other kids, and even shares the balls with others! She's been having so much fun! We are very proud of her!
Violet on the other hand has shocked us by how clingy she is! On our first class she wouldn't let us put her down! Literally any time we tried to put her down to do an activity, she would scream and cry! She made poor Miss. Lori so sad! She just wanted to be held though, so she spent the whole class in Daddy's arms. Last week at our second class she showed a little improvement. She did the warm up shaker song, but when it come to the warm up, she was clinging to me again. I did get her to do a log roll with me though...but that wasn't to hard, since I don't have to put her down to roll with her! She warmed up a little by ball time, and cracked some smiles while rolling the ball with Daddy. She shocked me during the closing song when she got up and put her shaker away by herself! Very proud of her! Today's class she did even better. She still was pretty clingy, but smiled during the opening song, and the warm up today had us doing a lot of activity where the parents hold their birds, so she got to participate in those activities. She loved when we hold our birds tummy to tummy, and bend over making them go upside down! She giggled and smiled when I did that with her! (Ella loved that too, and was laughing hysterically with Sean!) I forced her gently to do a wheel barrel with the class...she didn't like it, and cried the whole time, but did hold herself up well and walked a little on her hands. I didn't make her do it for to long though, since she wasn't enjoying it, but I'm proud she tried! (Ella however just wanted to do forward rolls, and wouldn't stay in the wheel barrel pose!) During the group activity, she again got up off my lap to put the sticks away, which was great! She was clingy again during free play though. She did like when I got up on the low beam with her and then jumped off it...that made her smile! I tricked her into crawling through the tunnel by putting her down on one side, and then rushing to the other side and calling her through. She cried the whole way crawling to me, but she did it! I'm just trying to gently push her to try new things, and hopefully she'll see that she likes it! I did get her to do a few backwards rolls on the cheese. She loves to do these at home, but wasn't to happy I put her down to do them today! She warmed up a bit again during ball time though. She cracked a lot of smiles while rolling the ball back and forth with me! Then she shocked me again by getting up and walking right through all the other kids to put her ball away when it was time! Very proud of her for doing that! Again during the closing song she smiled, and got up to put her shaker away when it was time! So it seems like she is fine with putting things away in class now! Maybe she keeps hoping that putting stuff away means that class is over! haha! Every week she keeps getting better though! I hope soon she will warm up to everyone and start enjoying the class as much as Ella does! I am proud for how much more she did today though! I'm just going to keep pushing her, to help her see all the fun she's missing (Wont push her too much of course...but will do what I can to get her to try some new things!) I can't wait till they both are having a blast at the class!
So that is our new developments at the Little Gym! I'm so glad we are fortunate enough to have a gym like this in our area, and that our girls can be a part of their wonderful classes!
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