Ballerinas and math

Jessa LOVES her ballet class. She has always been a dancer at heart. She sings and dances and puts on shows all the time. I was actually apprehensive about her taking a formal ballet or tap class. I did not want making it formal to suck the joy out of it for her. I needn't have worried. She can separate her "moves" from the "moves" that she learns in class. And oh yeah, she loves it. She likes the special clothes she gets to wear. She even thinks it is cool and special that she can only wear her shoes IN the class.

For her birthday, May got her a new ballet backpack and a new ballet sweatshirt. She was thrilled and could not wait to go to class the next day to put them to good use.

Here she is headed to class:

It was a special day for me, too. See, with our Awana class overlap issue, I have never gotten to stay and watch. Since the ballet room walls are all mirrors, the moms and dads can watch without the kids really seeing them using all the reflecting that is going on. But this night, I got to stay because Awana was cancelled because of Trunk or Treat at church. Yay, me!

I so enjoyed peeking around the corner and watching her follow the moves of her teacher. She did a great job.

I was so impressed with her.

I so loved the sweet looks on her face.

One night a few days ago, Jess and I were discussing ballet. She was telling me some of the names of moves and even showing me some foot positions. And then she thought of something that was clearly bothering her. She is all about counting now. She has a song that counts all the way to 100 and she is way proud that she can count that high. So in the spirit of her love of counting she said, "Hey mom, did you know that ballerinas can only count to 8?" At first I was not sure what she meant, but then it hit me - when you dance or exercise or even marching band, or anything musical, you count in 8's! Bless her heart, she was so worried about poor ballerinas and their inability to count higher than 8!