Swimming and ballet recap

Today was the last day of Annika's swimming lessons, and ballet lessons ended last week already.  I'm really proud of her for doing so well, and I think we all coped pretty well with the busyness of having 2 activities in one day.

Annika didn't pass her swimming level, but I was expecting that and I'm just really proud of her for the progress she did make and for sticking it out after having a really rough time at the beginning.  This picture is from a few weeks ago. She's now confident enough to be in the water without the step, and without holding onto the side of the pool.  :)  One thing that surprised me when looking at her progress report was that the instructor had checked off all the items under "skills and water safety", yet she had never really even addressed those things in class.  There was almost no "pool safety" talked about at all, other than when they yelled at the kids if they ran by the pool.  But that's not really an effective way of teaching, at least not in my opinion.  Another one of the items checked off was "PFD/Lifejacket and Me" - but unless they had lifejackets the first week, which we missed, I never saw a lifejacket once during the whole time.  Now, I understand that each teacher has their own style, and may have different teaching techniques, but you'd think if something was listed in the booklet, that it would be required of them to teach it!  Anyways, I'm really glad that we were able to do swimming lessons at this time, as now Annika has all summer to practice on the items she missed (eyes open underwater and front glide 3 seconds unassisted) and hopefully she'll be much more confident and at ease when we try again in fall.

Annika finished her ballet class last week Thursday, so it's nice that we don't have to rush off this evening!  She really enjoyed her ballet class, even though most nights I could see in her eyes that she was really tired.  Regardless, she still enjoyed being there and tried hard to learn the moves.  She got a few of them down, even though her plie looks sort of like she has to go to the bathroom. :)  She just needs a little more practice with waiting her turn.  The teacher often would ask them to line up and then go one at a time across the floor, and Annika would often just go when she felt like it.  Granted, a lot of the other girls did too. ;)  I think we'll try to put her in the same class again in fall, to get a little more wear out of her dance shoes and outfit while they still fit!  Plus, it's a good opportunity for her to get some exercise and interact with other girls her age.  Hopefully in fall we'll be able to get it on a different day than swimming, though.  These past few months haven't been as bad as I anticipated, but it's definitely not my preference!