Kate goes dancing

Thanks to the sister's recommendation, I signed Kate up for a series of dance classes. It all kinda started casually by me telling the sister that Kate's quite a stiff girl (like me & probably her father too) and from the limited songs with hand actions that she does know (hokey pokey, teapot...) she doesn't move very fluidly. So when the sister chanced upon this deal for dance class, she shot it across and within half a day, I'd decided to sign Kate up and even roped in a friend who also signed her daughter up.

Organised by the Kinder group, she fell under the tots category and it was a smallish class of 10 or less kids all aged 5 & below. The class ran a course of 6 classes but due to Kate being ill, she missed the first class and she only enjoyed 5 classes in all.

And I'm happy to say that enjoy the classes, she did! I didn't really know what to expect from the classes, or Kate, but I must say that from the very first lesson she attended, she impressed me! She was able to follow what the teachers did and her attention span was pretty good! Of course, there were moments that she got distracted and preferred to just jump around like a monkey, but overall, I feel that she did a great job in following the class through. What's also great is that she remembers the moves - I sometimes ask her to do a particular move at home and she is able to do so. When we're at class, her face lights up at familiar songs that she hears, and at one particular class, she even asked me "got teapot song or not?" when it's not being practised in class yet.

And the dead giveaway how much she enjoys herself is her proclaiming, "I like dance class, you know!" It's really awesome that she revels and enjoys the classes, so it's a great investment!

Playing with hoops. The children are mice & her hands are her "whiskers"

Learning to lower their heads to go through the hoops

Rewarded by "cheese" (pic held by teacher)

"If you're happy" - show your smile

Head & shoulders, knees & toes...

Stretching like a ballerina

Kate paying attention (I love it!)

Happy child

Going round the carousel

Again, "if you're happy"

Last Saturday marked the last of the classes and as much as she enjoyed the classes, there are several reasons why I'm not continuing the classes.

• Will prefer to see more structured lessons - out of the course, week 2 was the worst. The teacher was not engaging the children and I gave my feedback accordingly. There didn't seem to be a proper structure to the classes and that made the children go awry. Am happy to say though, that after feedback was provided, the rest of the classes were much better.
• Cost - while the cost is not that much ($20/class), it is still quite a bit of investment. The classes are only 45 minutes and well, let's just say this is a consideration in the decision-making process.
• Not the right time - I'm happy that I managed to accompany Kate to all her classes the past month+ & watch her lovely progress in class. However, given that I'm going to pop in a couple of weeks' time, it's not the right moment to add on things to-do given that we don't know how topsy-turvy our lives may become when Jake comes.
  

Truth is, I'm not sure if my expectations are too high (she's only but, 2) though I do feel that the curriculum could be better? I'm not sure how long more it'd take for me to be able to find time to let Kate enjoy extra-curriculum classes, but I know that given how much she enjoys music and dance, I'll be on the lookout for more suitable classes for Kate to attend.

Classes or not, I do want to expose her to more fun in the sun - swimming! Running! Play-time!