Mission: Gymboree!

Charlotte had her first Gymboree class this past Saturday and it was wonderful! She really enjoyed herself and participated in all of the activities and I was really impressed with the quality of the program. We went ahead and enrolled her (this first class was a free trial) and she'll start going weekly now. It is a little pricey, in my opinion, but after attending one of the classes I do think it is well worth it. I signed up during a period where they waive the $40 one-time enrollment fee and give you $10 off your first month so our first month will only be $59 instead of the normal $69 and we'll never have to pay that enrollment fee since when you join it's a "lifetime" membership. That includes one class per week and, I think, one Open Gym time per week. Also, you have the option to upgrade to a premium membership which is a one-time fee of $59. That gives you two classes per week, unlimited Open Gym time and your monthly rate drops to $59 per month instead of $69. I think we will probably go ahead and upgrade to this when we go back this coming Saturday. Even if we don't attend the two classes per week, it will still lower our monthly payments and that will pay for itself within 6 months. So, all in all, a little pricey but worth it and they also offer some incentives which helps.
One negative is that it does seem to be geared more towards stay at home moms since most of the classes fall during the week, mornings and afternoons, not a lot of evenings. But they do offer some evening Open Gym times and a Family Play & Learn class one evening of the week that we'll have to check out. But they do offer a few weekend options, just not as many.

Charlotte is in the Play & Learn 3 class (10 months - 16 months). The description for this group is: "Explore two-way communication with your child. Play environments encourage discovery, balance and coordination as parents learn to understand how their infant interacts and communicates with them and the world."
 The class is about 45 minutes long and is divided up into little sets of activities and there is always a theme for each week. This past Saturday our theme was "Big & Little" and was all about distinguishing between things that were small and large. The instructor emphasized how important it was to keep reminding the kids that things they were doing were big and little even if you think they aren't really comprehending because they are learning anyway, even if it doesn't seem that way to you, the parent.
The first activity was basically like a free play but with explaining to them how things around the room were big and little. For instance, there was a large slide and a smaller slide, a large bee puppet and a small one, etc.

If you look at the left side of the above picture you can kind of see the big slide next to a smaller one. Charlotte loved the slides in particular and kept insisting on going up each of them backwards.

One of the structured activities that came next was bouncing big and little. They have a large inflatable kind of thing that we sat the toddlers on and sang a song while we bounced them big and then little. We would sing louder when they were bouncing higher as another reference that one was greater than the other. Charlotte enjoyed this and wanted to do it twice in a row!

After that they did the Signature Activity for the Level 3 group which was to all line up behind the big inflatable thing and push it together across the mat and then back again. Charlotte kept stopping to clap... She was loving it!
I didn't get too many other pictures since I wanted to participate in the class with her too and not let Jason have all the fun!
Some of the other activities were to sit in a circle around the mat and blow bubbles while singing a bubble song. We got the huge parachute out and they all got under it while the parents raised it up and down. Then they got to sit on the parachute with Gymbo the Clown (a 36" plush clown that is actually pretty cute) while we pulled them around in a circle.
She had a really amazing time and we can't wait to go again this Saturday!