The Littlest Ballerina

In February I jumped on Afton's sudden interest in dance and signed her up for a class at a local studio. She did great! From the very first day she has loved it and has done very well. Her teeny tiny size (and lack of hair) is misleading and the first day her teacher came and told me how impressed she was with her verbal skills and ability to follow directions and stay with the class. She is actually the same age as most of them... she just looks so much younger. In late March the teacher, Miss Anne (who Afton adores) let us all sit in one day so we could take pictures. I took so many it was hard to narrow it down, but here are a few that stood out to me.

They start class with warming up. She has these activities memorized and will often play "dance class" with me at home... following the exact outline of her classes and using the same phrases her teacher does.

Then they move to the ballet barre, which Afton obvioulsy loves. She pays a lot of attention to detail and is very careful about making sure her feet are in just the right position. I love watching her find first position!

Next, they do across the floor exercises: ballet walks, battement (kicks), chasse, galloping, etc.

The next part is probably Afton's favorite. They play "freeze dance"... this is where the teacher turns on some music and will let them free dance and when the music turns off they all freeze. Afton strikes this pose every time she freezes... eyes to the side, hands up, so cute!

During the game they each get a chance to dance with the princess wand. She loves this and is especially creative when she gets to be the princess.

Then they work on a little routine. During February and March they learned a dance to the song "Baby Face" (video at the end of this post). She LOVED this!! She would sing it at home and dance her little heart out. Even after they moved on to another routine she would ask to do this one... she even refused to do the other one for a couple weeks (much to my frustration!)

Here is a spliced video of Baby Face. It takes her a minute to get with the program. My favorite things about this movie: her giggle when they are skipping around the room, her finding first position after the boogie, and the look of joy on her face at the end of the dance. Just try not to smile!