Our Budding Ballerina

About 6 months ago or so, Olivia started twirling around with her hands above her head saying she was a ballerina.  I assume it was from a show she saw.  Then she dropped it for awhile.  In my last batch of books I brought up from the basement, there was one with two little girls who we friends and they took ballet together.  From there it was non stop talk about how she wanted to take a ballet class and wear a pink tutu.

For her physical limitations and gross motor skill issues, she actually should be in gymnastics.  But she really wanted to do ballet, so we thought we'd give it a shot.  I looked into some of the places around here and they were a little intense--you can only wear black leotards, your hair must be in a bun at all times, etc.  I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I don't think Olivia is going to be a professional ballerina.  Therefore, I don't think we need such intensity at age 3. Luckily, there was a class through the Rec center and it is super cheap.  I thought that would be a good introduction.  If she ends up really wanting to do it for the long haul, then we can get her into a program where they do recitals and are serious.  For now we are just doing it for fun.

Her class is for 3 to 5 year olds and they meet once a week for 45 minutes.

Logan and I were in the back of the room, so my pictures didn't turn out great.

Doing her stretches

Tutu cute!

I'm sad that this is blurry, because it's her best one...

Arms in position one... feet just planted on that leaf. ;)

Then the teacher brought out the bar.  The funny thing is... Olivia lifted her legs and hung on it.  Of course, not at all allowed in ballet.  But I was a little happy inside, because she hasn't been able to do that previously!

Then they got little tulle scarfs to use to help them put their hands in the right positions.

Overall she did pretty well.  She listened to the teacher for the first half. As time went on she would follow some of the girls that were older and not really doing what they were suppose to, or she would just twirl and do her own thing. But she's 3, so that is pretty much how most of the others behaved as well.  It's another good exercise in listening to the directions and following along!