I Thought Gymboree Sold Clothes?

That's exactly what Earl said when I told him about Ella's upcoming Gymboree Class. Yesterday Kora, Kate, Ella, and I all made the trip to Toco Hills to take the girls to a Play and Learn class at Gymboree. Basically it's just a class that offers them the opportunity for structured play that will help them work on specific areas of development and growth. After doing some research, Kora and I decided this class looked like it was the most developmentally appropriate for the age and since it has an established name and reputation, we'd give it a try...even though it was an hour away. Plus, they offer a free class, so we had nothing to lose.

When we arrived, I sat Ella down so that I could put my socks on (yes, parents play too) and she immediately took off to see what all the neat stuff was. No shyness there! Once the actual class got started, she smiled and watched Ms. Andrea (the teacher), clapped when she clapped, and danced every time she danced or sang. She did great! Once we got directions from the teacher, we separated to explore all the different stations. Ella seemed interested in things, but wasn't quite sure about actually using them the way they were intended. Eventually she got the hang of it.

We started off by just letting them play and explore all the different things:

It doesn't matter how distracted you are, you can still reach for that bow! Right, Kate?

Once the "exploring" time was over, Ms. Andrea moved on to some more structured activities. The theme for this week was "Big and Little," so she had both big and little rings that the kids were supposed to put over the cones. Surprisingly, Ella did pretty well (since this was her first time). Of course, she started with the big rings...why start out small?

And, no matter how many neat things there are around, Ella can always find a ball to play with. This one did make noise, at least.

The final part of the lesson (I think this is the same each week) is the parachute. Ella was so amazed by the parachute. She crawled right on top of it to go see Jimbo (the doll) who was in the middle. All the parents pulled up the sides and the kids sat as we pulled them around in a circle. Ella enjoyed this, although I had to give her some convincing faces that it really was fun!

That picture was where the fun ended with the parachute. The next thing was to get under the parachute...no way. Ella did not like this at all and I think she cried until the parachute was put away in the closet. We'll have to work on that I suppose.

Maybe Ella's happy just because she's not near that parachute anymore. We had a great time!

Just a cute picture of the girls having fun!