The Little Gym

We love The Little Gym. My son has been going since 18 months and will soon be joining the 3 year old classes.
The staff at the Memorial class is so friendly. My son has had the pleasure of working with both Coach Chad and Ms. Gigi. I can’t say enough about how wonderful they are!
Classes are constructed perfectly for little ones. There is an overall routine from class to class so they know what is expected, but enough different activities to keep them excited. The instructors are hands on to teach proper safety spotting. The facility is very clean and they do what they can to keep it that way! They offer makeup classes if your little one is sick, but it is really up to parents to (hopefully!) make the right judgement call to keep them home.
It’s been a great social and active experience for my toddler and we will continue to use The Little Gym for our other child when the time comes!

From first walking in I thought maybe it is ok then we actually go inside the gym area and it smells of dirty musty feet and like it has not been cleaned in a long time. I know gyms smell I was a gymnast growing up for 14 years but this was awful!!! Next I realized there are at least 2 little kids with runny noses, you would think they would not let them come to class sick since they will get the other kids sick!!! Sure enough a day and a half after going my daughter, who never gets sick, came down with a runny nose and a FEVER!!! For $ 250 every 11 classes I would think they would be able to afford to keep the place clean and tell parents with sick kids to please keep them at home. And if you say maybe they didnt know the kids were sick… Im not sure what other kind of sign a parent walking around with kleenex wiping a kids nose gives off but to me that means SICK KID!!! We have since gone to Gymboree where I feel like my kids health is much more valued and it also does NOT smell like nasty musty feet. I would never go to The Little Gym again!

The Little Gym is a national chain of activity centers that specializes in helping children build motor skills through activities like cheerleading, tumbling, gymnastics and dance.
I had my son’s first birthday at this location and I was pleased with the experience. For your fee, Little Gym handles most of the birthday party planning from invitations to clean up. They provide staff to lead your little party guests in fun activities, and even if you have a range of ages in attendance, they will gear it all toward your little one. (One note on the invitations though — if I had a do-​over, I would go with my own because theirs are basically like a direct mail advertisement.)
For our party, they led the kids through songs, brought out the bouncy balls, allowed exploration on the gym equipment (all safe for small children when supervised), blew bubbles, led parachute games and set up the jumpy jump (you know, an inflatable platform for bouncing around).
Once the activities are over, you have time in a small party room to enjoy cake and snacks or whatever you bring for refreshments. Overall, you have about 1.5 hours in the facility for your event. (For small children, this is exactly the right amount of time.) The party was fun, efficient, and very low stress.
Since that time, my son turned 2 and I wanted to try out a regular class. They separate children by age group, and I was able to attend a free session to see how my son would take to the activities. I was really impressed with the girl who ran the class. My son was a cranky pants that day, and didn’t really want to participate in the activities. The facilitator assured us that was normal and said it would be fine for him to wander around a bit and explore the equipment, and that he would join the activities when he was ready. He never did, of course, but I appreciated the fact that the facilitator understood that two-​year-​olds sometimes have their own agenda.
So even though my son didn’t get much out of the trial class, from what I observed, I thought it would be a great diversion once he warms up to it. They do similar activities to what we do in music class — singing songs, playing with bells and bubbles — as well as activities promoting gross motor skills. In our trial class, the students were learning new skills, and these included forward rolls, headstands, assisted flips and «spider-​walking» sideways across parallel bars. All of the regular kids were interested and involved.
The staff teaches parents how to spot safely so that when you try it on your own you’re providing the right support throughout the exercise. The skills are challenging, but in a way that makes the kids really excited about trying them out.
The classes continue for around 20 weeks, but you can make either one payment up front, or three to five partial payments. We haven’t signed up yet because we’ll be starting part-​time daycare in a couple of weeks, but I definitely think that once our routine settles down, we will give it a shot. The staff is so nice, and the classes and equipment are perfectly sized for my little guy; it would be a shame to let one cranky day stop us from signing up.