6.22.2010

The Gymboree Experience

On the exact day that my toddler turned two, we went to Gymboree Alabang to have a trial/preview class. Us parents were on leave that day, to celebrate the kiddo's birthday. Since we were meaning to try this Play & Learn class, I called a few days before to check if we can have a trial. And we're lucky that one of the schedule of the level 5 class (for 22-28 month old kids) falls on a Wednesday, the day of his birthday. Perfect indeed. And the time could never be much perfect. 4pm. The kid should have been done with his afternoon nap.

Sorry no pics of the actual class. Just around the play area when the class was done and he was just fooling around.


So how did TJ fared? He was "pasaway" (not listening at times). Hahaha. Well, the play and learn class wasn't really designed to be classroom style. If your kid roams around the area during the class, the teacher would call him and ask him to join. But they wouldn't force your kid to really join if he doesn't want to. Which is what we were looking for because we're definitely sure that TJ won't listen at times. There are certain parts of the class where he was attentive, especially the bubbles and the maracas part.


After the class, we enrolled him right away for 4 sessions. It is quite pricey... no, make that really pricey. But even if our pockets were objecting, we enrolled him and hope that it would do him good. But we opted for the Saturday 1pm class, as I am a working mom and can only accompany him on weekends. The downside of the schedule is that 1pm is the kid's sleeping time. On our first official class, we almost didn't finish it as the kid's cranky already. So on his 2nd and 3rd class, we had to wake him up really early in the morning so that he will be sleepy and take a nap by 10am. And leave the house by 12noon+. Another downside of the schedule is that it is administered by a different teacher. We prefer the Wednesday class's teacher as she has a better flow and she makes sure that there's not a dull moment-- music is infused all through out the session. We were expecting it to be that way come Saturday. But it was quite different. It's kinda monotonous. No offense to the Saturday teacher. But we prefer Wednesday.


If you enroll the kid in the classes, the kid can have unlimited play during the day of the class if he is enrolled on a once a week session. (Unlimited play all throughout the week if he's enrolled in a 2x a week session.) The thing is, the kid can only play when there's no ongoing class. There are just certain times during the day when the gym area is free. So we weren't able to maximize it that much unless we come back again to avail of his unlimited play.


All in all, Gymboree is still worth it. The kid gets to play in a padded playground. And in fairness, every week, my son's participation "level" increases/improves. So that alone makes it worth it. But the schedule is not working for us. The 1pm schedule is a struggle. That makes our session this coming Saturday, our last, maybe until TJ can enroll in the Level 6. But we will be visiting the gym still. We still have 6 more gymplay coupons to consume, which we can use at any branch! =)

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