Another session of ballet lessons

On Saturday was Annika's last ballet class.  She did another 8 (or was it 9?) week session through the city's Leisure Guide, and she seemed to enjoy it.  It always seems a bit hard to tell - at home she says she's excited to go to dance class and she loves dancing around and being silly, but at class she always looks so serious and half-interested (but maybe that's just her nature - she's always quite serious and quiet in public).

Anyway, she did well, learned a few new moves (she took level 2 this time) and listened well to her teachers.  I find the teachers for the Leisure Guide ballet programs to be really hit and miss.  The first time she did a ballet class I really liked the teacher and found that she had a really good balance between fun and learning in the class (and she seemed to be quite aware of what to expect from a group of 3-5 year olds).  Last session (same class) I thought that the teachers seemed to be far too concerned with teaching actual ballet moves and didn't seem to realize that little girls also need some time to just twirl and have fun.  They also didn't seem to have much experience with little kids.  This time around the teachers were good with the kids, but it seemed like there wasn't much actual ballet teaching happening (which I found odd, since this was a Level 2 class) - they played a lot of games and learned about different kind of movement, but they hardly ever did plies or talked about feet positions, arm positions, etc (things that the previous teachers had spent a lot of time on).  Oh well, I guess you can't expect too much from an 8-week class. :P

Now we have 2 weeks of swimming left (I'm kind of sad that Annika missed the past 2 weeks due to illness, since she has really been improving this session), and then a little break until the new year.  In January we're planning to put her in skating lessons - it will be her first time skating!  I guess we'll see how that goes!!