Fun learning
Gymboree Play & Music in Norman gives its customers the opportunity to have their kids learn and play in a fun environment.
NORMAN — Music, fun and games are great ways to help young children learn.
Children and their parents get all of that and more from Gymboree Play & Music, at 255 34th Ave. SW.
Parent Christina Foss said she’s been taking her 3-year-old daughter, Ezri, to Gymboree Play & Music in Norman since she was a newborn. Now, Ezri attends the facility’s fullday preschool program three times a week.
Foss said Gymboree Play & Music was recommended to her by a friend. She was familiar with the program, given that she has an aunt who has enrolled all of her children in courses offered there.
When Ezri was born, “we enrolled her immediately” in the curriculum, Foss said.
“I love their philosophy of learning through play,” she said. “Research is showing more and more that play is vital to a child’s brain development, both socially and emotionally. That’s something our family really believes in.
“When it comes to the preschool program specifically, the teachers put a lot of emphasis on values we think are important, like caring for the environment and celebrating different cultures and the value of kindness overall.
“The teachers are phenomenal, so caring and attentive,” she said. “It puts my mind and my heart at ease, knowing that my daughter is there.”
The business, in its 15th year, offers various types of age- and developmentspecific courses to kids as young as newborns to children up to 5 years old.
Its Play & Learn course uses play-based activities to encourage kids to stretch their bodies and minds at the same time.
Tuesday morning, for example, about 10 toddlers and their moms, dads and caregivers enjoyed playing on climb and slide equipment, exploring play
panels incorporated into the equipment, playing with balls and toys and taking turns on an inner tube swing.
They also sang, clapped and played maracas along with class teacher, Julie Sondag, as she helped them with simple, fun movement and mental activities that kept everyone smiling.
Rebecca Myers and her son, Lincoln, attended Tuesday’s course.
“Going to Gymboree Play & Music with my son has really been invaluable to both of us,” Myers said, adding that they have been attending courses there since Lincoln was two months old.
Myers said her son enjoys interacting with the other toddlers, and added she has relished the opportunity to get to know other parents like herself.
“I really enjoyed being there with other parents who had young babies like I did so we could ask questions of each other and get good ideas,” she said.
Plus, the Play & Learn course gives Lincoln exposure to music and activities he wasn’t getting at home, she added.
“It’s helped us bond because I get to be there with him,” Myers said. “It has just been a great experience.”
Other courses
In its music and family music courses, Gymboree Play & Music’s teachers encourage children to develop key physical, social and intellectual skills through song, dance, movement games and instruments.
Sondag, who studied piano and completed her doctoral work in music education at the University of Oklahoma and also at one point had her own music studio, said she always had enjoyed using music to both educate and calm little ones.
“I was looking for a way to expand that,” she said.
One thing that makes Gymboree Play & Music unique, she said, is that parents participate in the courses it offers.
Its playscape, she said, is ever-changing and designed to help little ones build their confidence by working through the obstacles it presents.
Every two weeks, its theme changes, and all of its bridges, tunnels and other features that make up the playscape are moved around, as all the equipment is interchangeable.
It costs $69 a month for a child enrolled in one weekly course, with open gym time, or $99 a month for a child enrolled in as many weekly courses as they like.
If another child from the same family also is enrolled, the cost for that child is half-price, or free, if the child is six months old or younger.
The school readiness/ preschool programs are more extensive, and are priced accordingly.
Gymboree Play & Music is no longer a part of Gymboree Corp., which declared bankruptcy earlier this summer and announced it would be closing many of its stores that sell children’s clothing.
“We are thriving — we really want to build a community here,” Sondag said, noting she has families enrolled at the Norman Gymboree Play & Music who represent nearly a dozen cultures.