Menlo Park Academy of Dance

I signed both of the girls up for their first year of "real" ballet class. Lili had taken a fairytale pre-ballet class when she was younger, but she hadn't taken a serious ballet class and Serelle hadn't gotten to take any dance classes. So, I did some research and settled on a studio that I had heard a lot of good things about - the Menlo Park Academy of Dance.

For Serelle, I loved the studio! Her class was nice and small and it was a combo class, which meant that she spent 20 minutes each on ballet, jazz and tumbling. She loved her class and her favorite part was going with her cute little friend Kyla. They loved going to ballet together and tried to stand next to each other as often as possible! 

 Serelle has turned out to be a great learner. She is very good at listening to her teach and following directions, which are two very important elements of dance! I especially liked going to watch her class because I got to sit and chat with my cute friend Keshia!

 I had a more mixed reaction to Lili's class and her experience at this studio. She had a great teacher, and I could tell that she was getting quality instruction. The biggest problem for her was the class size, it was giant! It was hard for me to see how the teacher could possible give each child a decent amount of help and attention when she had so many students!

The other drawback to Lili's class was that is was part of the Royal Academy of Dance - which means that the studio, teachers, and some of the students are tested each year on a series of requirements. I was not a very big fan of this program because it meant that Lili's class spent 85% of their time practicing the exam routine and the rest of the time on everything else - technique, recital dance, etc. It seemed like a very lopsided way to teach dance.

I'm learning that I have a lot of opinions when it comes to my daughters dance classes! Although I wasn't crazy about some aspects of this studio, both of the girls loved going to class and learned more than they knew at the beginning of the year - I guess that's a good place to start.