Dancing with Bees and Butterflies

I really enjoyed the music and the dances on this month's DVD.  The original choreographer (Maria West) returned from maternity leave and I'm quite happy about it.  I really liked the interim one (Kristy) but her dances were a little harder for uncoordinated me to follow (my girls had no problem).

The songs are the same, fun standard I've gotten used to with the program.  I really feel like I get a good workout when I do them with the girls and I don't hate listening to the music because the lyrics are pretty good and the music is always enjoyable.  These dances are great for helping me stretch as well as work muscles and my girls' coordination gets better each time we put one in.

We often use the DVDs at the beginning of school while I finish gathering materials (I know, I should have everything prepped the night before but I'm in survival mode a lot these days) or when they need to get some wiggles out between more academic activities.  We can never do just one song; the minimum appears to be three.

I've mentioned before that there are dance class lessons included with each lesson book (four, to be exact).  We started doing one of the classes on a rainy, non-school day this week.  We got through exactly one activity, where they had to jump each time they heard a word we selected (we chose 'butterfly') in a song and then estimate how many times that word occurred.  Then, we were supposed to listen to the song again and put a counter in a bowl each time we heard it so we could count the exact number of occurrences.  Knowing my girls, I chose to drop the counters in the bowl while they danced.  I asked Miss M how many times she thought she heard the word 'butterfly' (her guess was two--she was pretty intensely watching the dance moves) and then we counted up how many of the garden beads I had put in the bowl (there were eight).  Of course, they both became distracted by the beads and wanted to switch to that activity (which necessitated bringing out our other beads from previous months because one does not simply share the pretty flower beads with your little sister).

It is fun to have these activities at my fingertips, when we have a play date or just need something to fill the time before Daddy gets home.  When I pull out a unit folder on a day or a time when we are not scheduled for school with our friend, I am usually met with some resistance these days but not so with our Dance N Beats classes.  They are a fun addition to our home school.