Combining the classes was a little more complicated than expected. One girl's mother is a teacher and could not get her to class before 4:30 and the other girls' mother had another commitment at 5:00. We ended up doing a compromise, so some of the girls come at 4:00 and some come at 4:30 and I make sure they all get an hour of dance in. It will be different, but I think it will work.
I planned to stretch, do pirouettes and kicks and then do freeze dance at 4:30 so that the girl who had to come later would be able to warm up her body and do the other exercises with us without injury. The youngest dancer still cried a lot, but she was better than last time. Her mother practiced with her at home so she was more confident at first, but I kinda learned that for her getting her to do something across the floor or any type of turn is an accomplishment even if it's not the same thing everyone else is doing. Hopefully we can build her confidence and get her to a point where she will be able to feel safe and do well in future classes.
I introduced the idea of spotting to them as a break for the youngest dancer when she got frusterated and it seemed to really help. I might have to break up the class with small things that will build her confidence before we go do things that are harder.
The sisters brought their neighbor so we ended up with a total of four girls! Which while still small, is still pretty fun. I'm excited to get to continue to work with this group of girls.
When the other children had to leave the last dancer was a little bummed. I think she really enjoyed having other children to play and dance with and it was kind of sad for her to be all alone again. I'll have to come up with some games and other fun things to help her enjoy that last half hour after the others leave.
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