- taught by Suzanne Burroughs -
A specialized creative dance class that helps parents bond with their babies through movement, rhyming, music and playtime.
There are three levels for this class:
Babies - 3 months to pre-walking
Tuesday at 11:00 am -12:00 pm
Attire: Babies in onsies and bare feet.
Join other parents and experience the satisfaction of stimulating your baby’s first year with movement. This fun and creative class will enrich your baby’s motor, music and language skills using baby exercises, musical instruments and sensory rich creative play products.
Waddlers - walking to 24 months
Wednesday at 9:00-10:00 am
Attire: Comfortable clothing and bare feet.
Now I am walking and I want to explore my world! Discover new ways to move with your waddler while you explore the dance concepts using rhyming exercises, creative play products and musical instruments. Watch your child develop their motor coordination, language skills and musical intelligence participating in this class. Strengthen your bond with one another with fun
movement exploration and self discovery.
Toddlers - 24 months to 3 years
Thursday at 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Attire: Comfortable clothing and bare feet.
Looking for a class your toddler will love and help them become expressive with their bodies? Exploring dance concepts in a fun and engaging program gives your toddler new ways their bodies
can move and develops their creative capacities. Using rhyming exercises, props and musical instruments, toddlers enjoy devoloping mastery of their motor skills at a young age.
Summer Session
10 weeks: June 14th - August 20th
Cost: $100.00 for the whole 10 weeks
plus $35.00 for parent pack
Mommy & Me classes are based on the work of Christine Roberts who created “Nurturing Pathways” in Seattle, WA. From the introduction of Christine’s booklet, “Nursery Rhymes and Chants; Body and Brain Exercises for Babies, Waddlers, and Toddlers:”
Nurturing Pathways nursery rhymes and chants are designed to enrich a child’s cognitive and physical development. These exercises layer learning with appealing rhythm, melody, touch and movement to establish strong neural networks early on in a child’s life, all through the bonding agent of play.
Babies, waddlers and toddlers bond with their parents and caregivers during the rich exchange of rhyming language, eye contact, touch and movement. They alert and attend to the melody and rhythm of songs, directing their learning to early math and language concepts. Because nursery rhymes and chants create bonds, stimulate attention, and develop a love of language, they serve as a wonderful “glue” for connecting emotions with intellectual development. Current research (Joseph Ledoux, Rima Shore) shows a child’s first three years are critical for developing emotional and intellectual success. The value of using Nurturing Pathways’ rhymes and chants cannot be overestimated for Attention, Bonding and Communication - the “ABC’s” of a child’s emotional and intellectual development.
“Emotion drives attention, and attention drives learning, problem solving,
behavior, and just about everything else.” (Sylwester)
Touch and movement together activates more neural networks, increasing the learning potential. The movement exercises have been designed to reinforce the patterns of movement a baby progresses through during the first year of life. Rehearsing these patterns helps “prime the pump” and strengthens babies for their next developmental milestone. Waddlers and toddlers benefit from repeating these patterns of movement because they fire their neural networks in an organized pattern, contributing to integrated brain function. Whether your baby, waddler or toddler needs to find new patterns, improve awkward ones, or build on skills they already have, the emotional hook of rhymes, combined with integrating exercises, are a powerful combination for enriching their overall development.
For more information about Nurturing Pathways, go to nurturingpathways.com
