Gymboree Play & Music

This is such a fun place for my one year old! The teacher Joanne is awesome — she is so animated and has so many activities and ways to build skills in the kiddos — she really makes the class top notch. We are in the class for 10 – 16 month olds and it’s so ideal for this age because they are learning to walk. It’s a bit pricey but I find it worth it — you can go to open gym up to 3 times a week in addition to your class.

I took a Music II class here for a few months taught by Ms Jen, who was just fabulous. From what I’ve (literally) heard, all of the teachers at Gymboree can sing, but Jen has a beautiful voice that was extremely engaging for my very musical child.
The music class was small, structured, and predictable (predictability is a good thing for a young toddler). My kiddo became familiar with the routine after just a couple of weeks. There are a variety of props and instruments used throughout class that truly encourage little ones to explore their love of music. Every few weeks a different genre of music is introduced, which I enjoyed as this is quite different from the «Kindermusik» class I tried elsewhere.
You have access to all of the open gym times when you are enrolled in any class, which is great. The open gym times are 3 hour blocks; very practical as sometimes a nap ends late, starts early, etc. I will say that compared to another «gym» type place that my child attends, the equipment at Gymboree definitely errs on the younger side; this makes sense as Gymboree isn’t meant to be a gymnastics studio, but my daughter can only go down so many baby slides before she’s ready for something more interesting.
Overall I thought Gymboree was a good value. It’s pricey but on par with all of its competitors. I only stopped attending because my daughter became very anti-​circle time (no fault of Gymboree’s). I will likely try out an art class in the future.

Do the free class for sure and see what you think.
It’s pricey but gives you an activity to do with your baby in a clean and positive environment. They are very flexible on make-​up classes and allow you to bring guests with.

This story is in reference to the «teacher» by the name of Joanne who taught the Art 2 class held on 8÷14÷2013 at 10:45am, located at 3600 Communications Pkwy. #645 Plano, Texas 75 093.
At the end of class Miss Joanne asked my daughter and another little girl (not the little boy also in attendance) to lift their clothing /​dresses several times so that she may stamp and kiss their stomach.
When I said to Miss Joanne not to do that to my child. She completely ignored me. I then said to Ms Joanne, «Mom, is not ok with that»! Miss Joanne went ahead and lifted my daughters dress to stamp her on the stomach and KISSED her stomach. I find the behavior odd and unprofessional to say the least.
When I spoke to management today. I was told this was «policy», «to stamp and kiss hands, feet and bellies from infant to five years old» and this was normal behavior.
However, it would be noted in my daughters file that staff should not ask or help lift her clothing in order to kiss or stamp her.
First of all, I don’t find a problem with asking my daughter to stamp her hand, but, asking my daughter to LIFT HER DRESS, SO SHE COULD KISS HER BELLY…
and then to TOTALLY IGNORE me saying «NO», «Mom is not comfortable with that»!
Outrageous!
Let me reiterate in no way shape or form do I find it normal or acceptable behavior for an adult who was a perfect stranger, and/​or «teacher» to ask a child to lift up their clothing so that they may kiss and stamp the stomach or any other body part.
I find it disgusting and suspect that they would completely ignore the parents request. I am appalled that the staff and management would condone such «policies» that would allow little children «to be groomed» by staff of a children’s program which can lead to more serious, inappropriate «touching»!
to make matters worse today I received a phone call from the District Manager, Mary Ellen, who informed me that «stamping the belly was POLICY, and she seemed to not care that the I the Mother was totally ignored when I stated that having a stranger ask my daughter to lift her dress, so that the «facilitator» could stamp and kiss my daughter’s belly and then to have this perfect stranger «LIFT MY DAUGHTERS DRESS and then KISS HER BELLY, was not acceptable»
This «SO CALLED POLICY» COMES FROM THE TOP DOWN!

My 2 ½ year old son and I discovered the Gymboree Play & Music classes online while I was doing a basic search for activities for toddlers. I have been looking for a fun «Mommy and Me» style class that we can enjoy together.
I called and asked about what they offer and was excited to find out there are three separate classes at this location– Art, Music, and a Play & Learn. You can take your pick of the 3 and try out a free class to see what it’s like. We chose the Play & Learn. I felt because my son is so active I was not sure a Art or Music he would be ready for.
The Play & Learn class was fantastic. The gym was large and clean with bright colors and exciting equipment. The instructor was female and seemed very upbeat and happy to teach and play with the kids. The group was a nice ratio of little boys and girls which I liked since the last few places we have tried was primarily girls.
This class was unlike any other group because the instructor encouraged pretend play instead of just learning «skills». It made it very exciting for the toddlers and kept their attention to learn along with the play.
This is so cute– they have a «theme» for their class each 2 weeks. Last week the instructor told me they had a Construction theme and this week was new with the Farm theme. Each theme runs 2 weeks.
Everything we did this class was Farm related:
The kids pretended to be piggies rolling in the mud.
Chickens in a hen house with props for eggs.
Horses galloping up a field.
Very fun! My son absolutely loved it I just cannot believe how excited he was to be pretending with little friends.
I will be talking this over with my husband before we make a decision to join a membership but I am pretty sold on trying this out for the rest of the summer. It is just so hot here in Texas and the same old stuff gets boring. I appreciate that with a membership there is «open gym» every day for a certain window of time. I have a feeling we will be taking advantage of that!

After purchasing a Groupon last year (this review is based on experiences in 2010), I enrolled my son in the music classes there and was excited to begin with him.
We only made it through one class and it was embarrassingly bad.
The teacher claimed to have a music degree, but I found it hard to believe based on her complete lack of knowledge on the subject (although she was VERY confident about it all). While slightly irritating, I could have suffered through it because I doubted my one-​year-​old would remember all of the misinformation she was spewing (Jazz was invented in the early 1800s, the correct way to «scat» sing is to say «do-​be-​do-​be-​do-​be).
However, the class itself was awkward, with the instructor introducing a new instrument or toy for every song, which invariably resulted in a bunch of two-​year-​olds freaking out when they took them away. No matter how much a child did not want to relinquish their instrument she absolutely insisted that they not keep whatever they had become attached to. This led to most of the songs she sang being drowned out by a chorus of screaming toddlers. So I guess I should be thankful.
The facility was beautiful, the instruments were great, the price absolutely reasonable (even without the Groupon), but the teacher was so bad I wanted to cry. This is the only time I have ever asked Groupon for a refund (which Groupon and Gymboree agreed to). I probably should have opted to try the «Sports» classes which looked pretty cool, but I was too traumatized.
After all this snarkiness, I would still not dissuade someone from doing a free trial class. The facility is wonderful and so much of the quality of these kind of classes is the teacher you get, so it’s worth trying. Just be prepared to cry in the shower for a few days afterward, just in case.