This is a joint giveaway between Natural Parents Network and many other natural parenting sites. I'm cross-posting it here as well. You may enter for all of the giveaways at one site only. Please find the section marked "Win it!" for the mandatory entry and optional bonus entries.
Welcome to the Natural Parents Network Holiday Gift Guide!
Have you finished your holiday shopping? The NPN Holiday Gift Guide is a great opportunity to complete your gift-giving purchases for family and friends, while supporting many naturally-minded small businesses. The companies who have provided items for giveaway are almost exclusively made up of small businesses or work-at-home families.
The Rafflecopter entry system is at the bottom of this post (and on every post participating in the Gift Guide). Please visit some of the other review posts listed below and read about the fabulous companies offering giveaways in the Natural Parents Network Holiday Gift Guide.
But to recap, what I liked about the Swan Lake DVD was how it combined a narrated and abridged filming of a real ballet production with simple ballet instruction for my little guy — with plenty of time to leap around.
What I was a little less enthusiastic about I had high hopes that Prima Princessa had fixed with The Nutcracker — and I was right!
First of all, The Nutcracker has what I liked about Swan Lake — children get an introduction to a real ballet production and a sense of the story behind it (narrated by the animated Prima Princessa); they get to hear ballet terms and see them demonstrated by talented students from the School of American Ballet; and they get time to dance around, freestyle.
And what it has in addition are the updates I was hoping to see:
Little boys are included in the children's scenes. All the kids are having a sort of Christmas gathering, and the little boys get to dance around with fake swords. The student demonstrators from the American School of Ballet and, of course, the professional dancers also include males among their ranks.
The professional ballet company, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, has a more ethnically varied cast, which we could also see with the little kids and the students from the American School of Ballet.
The reason I was so intent on showing Mikko boys doing ballet is, of course, because he's a boy! I love that he can see that dancing isn't only for girls (despite the pink and purple of the DVD cover), that it's something he can choose if he'd like as well. I take an adult ballet class, so he's interested right now in anything his parents do, so I love that I can share the magic and joy of ballet with him in this kid-friendly fashion! Here are some fun pictures of my little dancing guy while watching Prima Princessa Presents: The Nutcracker.
Mikko wanted to wear his "boy" ballet clothes this time, only unfortunately I couldn't find his black tights. He was willing to wear gray sweatpants instead — but only if I wore gray leggings as well. So I did. And he was willing to wear his white shirt — if I wore a white shirt. So I did! We matched, head to toe. He didn't want to wear his adorable ballet shoes (sigh), so we settled on stocking feet for both of us. And then we danced, danced, danced! (There are no pictures of me since I was wielding the camera, so I had to explain.)
Pointing his toe while he watches. (Please ignore all the Christmas detritus in these pictures!)
This is Mikko's version of a passé. I have to say I was really impressed that he was working so hard to duplicate what he saw on screen!
Here's his develope to the side!
The Santa hat was a necessary addition!
The running time for the DVD is 60 minutes (up from 40 for Swan Lake). Bonus features on the Nutcracker DVD include easy holiday crafts to do with your kids, such as a paper chain and cut-out snowflakes, and extra dance party music. Mikko loved watching all the elements and boogying to it all!
Thank you, Prima Princessa, for another wonderful ballet DVD for little ones!
BUY IT!
The Prima Princessa DVDs are priced at only $6.99! This fabulous price was set intentionally so parents of most any income level can afford to give their kids the gift of a ballet experience. If buying one isn't in your price range, though, or you want to preview before buying, check to see if your library has it.
The Nutcracker in particular would be a well-loved gift for any little enthusiast for tutus and tiaras. Just be aware of Amazon's shipping dates for holiday delivery: For the United States, the deadline for Super Saver Shipping is Friday, December 17, to receive your order by Christmas. Monday, Dec. 20, is the cutoff for Standard Shipping. Other options can be found here. Here's a link for information on international shipping.
Have a look around PrimaPrincessa.com, where you can find fun & games, coloring pages, ballet definitions, directories for ballet schools and tutu shopping, and a teacher's guide!
Disclosure: Prima Princessa sent me a free DVD for review.
Amazon links are affiliate links.
I try to seek out only products I think you would find
relevant and useful to your life as a natural parent.
If I don't like a product, I won't be recommending it to you.
That's how I roll. See my full disclosure policy here.
I visited the site and my daughter would love to dance to this DVD.
I'm sure she will!
Prima Princessa offers unique ballet DVDs for your favorite little dancers. Prima Princessa Presents: Swan Lake mixes a real ballet production with simple ballet instruction for your little one — with plenty of time to leap around in tutus and tiaras. There's also a new DVD called Prima Princessa Presents: The Nutcracker that would be a perfect Christmas gift!
If you were not the lucky winner, don't fret: Prima Princessa is dedicated to keeping their DVDs affordable for almost every family! You can find them on Amazon or at other DVD retailers for only $6.99 each.
I was so excited when the two moms behind Prima Princessa contacted me to review their preschool ballet DVD — I was able to tell them my three-year-old son already loved it! We had checked it out from the library, and he had just been asking me to watch "Pima Pincessa" again when they wrote.
Watching my review copy of Prima Princessa over again (and again) reminded me of what Mikko and I love about it.
Prima Princessa is a DVD series that introduces ballet to toddlers and young children. It works perfectly for the preschool set. All other children's ballet DVDs I've seen have been in the instructional category and are a straight class format. I think class-like DVDs can be good for older students (elementary age on up) but are usually too advanced for younger kids. (There are a couple out there for pre-ballet age, if you look.) You can also sometimes find DVDs that are a filming of a stage production or that follow ballet students through their days, but all of those can be awfully dry for the littlest viewers.
What Prima Princessa offers is, in my experience, completely unique. It's a combination of simple ballet instruction with a stage production that's narrated and explained by a flying ballerina fairy (P.P. herself). It's engaging for young kids, not least because it features young kids in the cutaway scenes.
Basically, there are four types of scenes you'll see in the DVD:
Little kids (around 3-5 years old) dancing (twirling, jumping, running) on the grass in tutus.
Slightly older students, but still children, in ballet class (maybe in the 10-12 age range) at the American School of Ballet, demonstrating ballet techniques such as pirouettes and pas de chat.
Assorted clips that relate to the movement, such as a spinning toy for pirouette turns and a leaping tiger for demonstrating jumps.
An abridged performance of a professional ballet, in this case Swan Lake by the Paris Opera Ballet.
Guess who picked out his own ballet dress to match the girls on the DVD and then excitedly told the checkout person, "I'm doing ballet!" The black tights were my attempt to get him "boy" ballet clothes. I had to give in to the euphoria of a flowy pink dress, though.
Mikko was fascinated by each segment in turn, and they're interspersed throughout the DVD, so he was interested in each part:
What's nice about showing little kids dancing is that your own little kid can relate. The friendly Prima Princessa fairy tells your young ballerina/ballerino to put on a tutu and dance, and the dancing is completely free-form, in typical little-kid style. The girls in the DVD look like they're really having a fun time.
I liked that the student demonstrations from the American School of Ballet were so well done. The students demonstrating the moves were obviously very well trained (sooo much better dancers than I am even though I'm, like, three times as old), and I appreciated that there were several boy dancers who were featured, so I could show Mikko what a boy dancer looks like and what Mikko might wear if he takes ballet classes. I also loved that these demonstrations gave a vocabulary term, which, being ballet, is in French, and then explained it in English and showed it in action. It makes for a good introduction to ballet terms
Arabesque!
kids will hear if they continue on in ballet class.
I thought the little clips of toys and animals were the most random part, but Mikko loves them. Clearly the producers knew what they were doing! He loves to point out what each thing is. "Look, Mama, ladybug! … That a frog!"
I absolutely appreciate the comprehensive excerpts from each act of a professional ballet production. Since Mikko is too young to take to an actual show yet (you trust me on this, yes?), I love that he can see what ballet is actually for. He gets the idea that dance tells a story, and the voiceover explains the story clearly. In fact, I wish I had a voiceover like that when I went to the ballet! I thought this part might be the least interesting to Mikko, but he really enjoyed it. He asked questions about the characters and pointed out what they were doing.
Here's another huge plus for Prima Princessa. The DVD costs $6.99. That's it! The company was founded by two mothers of young children, Stephanie Troeller and Mary Kate Mellow, and they wanted to make sure it was accessible to a variety of income levels. I'll point out, too, that you might be able to find it at your library, as I was, but it's definitely a fun one to have on hand if you can swing it.
I'm not sure what ballet move this is, but it's fun.
Prima Princessa is a series, which is great, so they've just come out with Prima Princessa Presents: The Nutcracker, and I believe The Sleeping Beauty is in the works.
I also love that it gets Mikko (and me) moving. Witness his joy here:
So that's what I love about Prima Princessa.
Here are a couple small quibbles.
It's geared almost exclusively toward girls. I get that. I do. Girls like ballet and tutus and pink and fairies, yes. But I have a boy, and I was hoping he'd be inspired to try out a ballet class like his mama's. Fortunately, he's too young still to see all these little girls
hopping around in tutus and feel like he doesn't relate. I think he knows that there are differences between boys and girls, but he doesn't yet separate himself so much into his own "team" that it's an issue. That said, I'd love to see more little boys leaping and twirling as well, and … I think they heard me in advance. Because the preview of The Nutcracker shows … yup, a whole blush of boys fighting each other with play swords (well, of course). All the promotional language, too, makes it clear this DVD is intended for your little girl. You can check out just the opening lines and images in the video on the main page to see what I mean. Again, fine and expected; it just makes me feel a little left out, for Mikko's sake.
As I mentioned, they actually seem to have alleviated this a little in the second DVD in the series. I also mentioned, and I really did like this, that some of the student dancers are boys, and very skilled at that. In the professional production, of course, there are plenty of men dancers. So there are still people I can point out to Mikko as examples for what he might become. (Um, not really; he is my child after all, so I'm not sensing professional dance career in his future, but still.)
I also appreciated that the children included an apparent mix of ethnicities. That said, the professional production read as pretty uniformly white (not meaning to slight anyone in the
Jeté!
company who isn't; you can see what I mean at this list of the dancers). I can't fault the Paris Opera Ballet for being what it is, or the producers for being able to make arrangements with perhaps only certain ballets, but I thought it might be nice to show that professional dancers can be both male and female and also of any color. I just point it out in case it's a concern for you and your kids. Again, I think the Prima Princessa crew heard my plea before I made it, because The Nutcracker features the Royal Birmingham Ballet, which from their company list seems to have a little more diversity.
So those are my two small concerns, which I believe Prima Princessa heard in advance and has been working on. Other than that, I think the DVD is top notch and worth adding to your children's DVD collection if you have any budding ballet stars among your family. The production values are excellent, with no indication that this is an amateur attempt. The sound is good, the editing, the narration, the cute little kids in their costumes, the filming locations — it's all high quality and worth every penny of the $6.99 asking price and beyond.
BUY IT!
Did I mention the DVDs are priced at only $6.99? I know, right?
For your own chance to win a DVD of Prima Princessa Presents: Swan Lake, enter in the comments below! Contest is open to U.S. and Canada.
(As an aside, the DVD is Region 1, which is for U.S. and Canadian DVD players. I am the one shipping it, and I will ship it worldwide. I am saying it's open to U.S. & Canada, since Region 1 DVDs will play only in U.S. and Canadian players, or potentially in region-free players. If you live elsewhere, you assume all risk of having the DVD not play for you. In other words, you're free to enter the contest if you're sure sure sure a Region 1 DVD will play in your machine, but I can't replace it or help you out if you win and it doesn't. Ok?)
MAIN ENTRY:Visit PrimaPrincessa.com and tell me who will dance to this DVD if you win!
Leave an email address in at least one of your comments if it's not clearly visible on your profile or linked web page so I can contact you if you win. (You can write it like this to foil spambots: mail (at) hobomama (dot) com or similar.)
BONUS ENTRIES, to increase your chance of winning (leave a separate comment for each so I can count them all):
Tweet about this giveaway (up to 5 times total, at least 24 hours apart). You can use the retweet button at the top of the post or tweet this text: Enter to #win a delightful children's ballet DVD in a #giveaway from Prima Princessa and @Hobo_Mama! http://bit.ly/cw8Bnp {11.10, US/Can}
Enter another of my current giveaways (1 extra entry per giveaway — check back for more).
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RULES:
Contest open to United States and Canadian mailing addresses (but see my comment about Region 1 DVDs above).
Leave each entry as a separate comment so I can count them all.
For actions like following and subscribing, if you already follow or subscribe, just let me know in your comment.
For tasks that garner you multiple entries, you can copy and paste the comment with a #1, #2, etc.
You don't have to do any of the bonus entries, but you do have to complete the first mandatory one.
I will pick the winner through Random.org after the contest closes and send an email notification. Leave an email address in your comment if it's not clearly visible on your profile or linked web page so I can contact you if you win. If I can't reach a winner or don't hear back within a couple days, I'll draw a new name.
Any questions, let me know: mail {at} HoboMama.com
Disclosure: Prima Princessa sent me a free DVD for review.
Amazon links are affiliate links.
I try to seek out only products I think you would find
relevant and useful to your life as a natural parent.
If I don't like a product, I won't be recommending it to you.
That's how I roll. See my full disclosure policy here.
Awhile back, I was asked to review a new children's ballet DVD called Caterina and Her Baby Ballerinas. I can only assume the PR rep saw one of my articles on ballet as it relates to me (I take adult beginning classes) or to my son (I wish to enroll him in a preschool ballet class), because otherwise why would anyone in the ballet world target a random mother of a two-year-old boy?
So, while other mothers of toddler boys (and many mothers of toddler girls) might have demurred, I was jumping in excitement. See, I was actually looking for children's ballet DVDs at the time. Perfect synergy, no?
Every week when I head off to my ballet class, Mikko pleads and cries to come along with me. It's one of those break-your-heart-but-sorry-Mama's-out-of-here moments, because, you know, it's an hour and a half a week. I deserve an hour and a half a week to devote to exercise and stretching and centering myself and feeling like more than a mother, right? Right?
I thought Mikko might appreciate more why and where I was going if I went ahead and signed him up for classes right away. He was still two at the time, and even though the school usually doesn't start seeing little ones until they're past their third birthday, I asked and received permission to bring him in for his trial class.
We didn't make it out of the hallway.
Mikko looked in on the class, already in progress because I'm late for absolutely everything (sorry, everyone in the world I've bothered with that trait!), and quailed at the thought of entering that whirling mass of white-leotarded cuteness that is a roomful of three-year-old girls.
So I sat out in the hall, and he stood on my leg so he could peer through the window at the dancing girls, like an adorable peeping Tom in training. For my part, I tried to look innocuous and casual, as if I always hung out in the hallway of the dance studio with a boy perched on my thigh.
I had this brilliant idea after the fact that perhaps I could better prepare him at home for his next encounter with the scary experience that is Ballet Class. My plans tended along the same lines as my preparations for our airplane trip this summer.
I went to the library and checked out every book I could find on children and ballet (and one on a dog ended up in the mix as well). I knew about Prima Princessa from a giveaway I had entered, so that DVD went onto my list, too. I then tried to squirrel away in my memory every detail I had seen or heard from the pre-ballet class I had witnessed from the hallway, so that we could practice some of the moves in our living room.
I was sort of surprised (and yet, in retrospect, not) that the pre-ballet class, for the 3-5-year-old range (or thereabouts), is not very balletic. It's a lot of running in circles, kicking, and flexing toes, and it's a short class: thirty minutes long. It's a warmup for true ballet classes, when kids have the discipline, stamina, and, more importantly, the physical development to attempt proper ballet form.
So Caterina, when the DVD came, was the perfect addition to my bag-o-ballet-prep. Here is a trailer, and following it are my thoughts on the DVD.
The backstory is that Caterina is a Siamese cat who grew up among ballet dancers and so learned to dance (not unlike that dog story, seriously). Caterina is played by a lovely dancer in a black costume and face mask, and she peppers her talk with phrases like "That's cat-astic" and "Feeling feline?" The theory behind using a cat is that little children respond well to animal narrators.
The format of the DVD is a standard ballet dance class, at (is this sad?) my level. So, um, maybe 8-12 years old? The class follows the typical progression of barre exercises combined with stretching, followed by moves out on the floor. It finishes up with ideas of some simple but pretty moves to do with friends.
The "baby ballerinas" dancing along with Caterina (Kaylani Parks and Lucia Connolly) are probably around 11 or so (I am not renowned at guessing ages, so take that with a grain of salt), and are two lovely young ladies and skillful dancers in their own right. (Just found this nice article on Kaylani and her quest to go to the Dance Theatre of Harlem School, and it says she's now 12. I win!)
The DVD is, therefore, a little old for Mikko, who just turned 3, although only a little old. I think kids who are familiar with ballet might start watching it at 3 or so, but beginners might do better starting around 5 years old (on up and up). That said, Mikko likes it anyway, probably because I mix our pre-ballet moves into our experience of watching it. We do a lot of running around, then freezing and pointing our toes, then more running, then kicking, then holding hands and twirling in circles. It's a workout! Is this following the DVD at all? Well, no, but it's our background accompaniment.
He likes the cat character, and I can hope he's absorbing some ballet terms (all that French!) and observing some proper ballet form. It's kind of like how I'm raising him bilingual in German as a non-native speaker — I definitely don't want to be his only influence in the language, and it's the same with ballet!
For myself as an adult dancer, I do like having ballet class videos on hand. Sometimes I can't make it to class, and this is an easy and non-embarrassing way to practice what I would be doing in class. If you're a beginner, you could follow along and drop out whenever it gets too hard. As Caterina points out, you don't need special equipment like a barre — you can use a straight-back chair instead.
I also think the woman playing Caterina does a good job of being feline and engaging. I even like the campy way she rolls her Rs when she tells us something we (puportedly) did was "purrrrfect."
The only real turn-off for me on this video is the sound quality. It's got that class-film level of audio. The voices are louder when they're close to the camera, and tinny with a lot of background echoing and white noise when they're far away. It's too bad, because I imagine the only way to fix the sound would be to completely redo either the sound track or the whole film, but it would go a long way toward making the film seem professional rather than an amateur production. The video transition effects are a little cheesy, too, and the DVD case looks like it was put out by a mom-and-pop company. Not a bad thing, but first impressions count for a lot. The setting is a plain ballet studio, but I don't have a problem with that except to say that adding some scope with additional settings in any future installments might be nice. The costumes of the three dancers are simple but attractive. I hope what I saw was maybe just the first Caterina DVD as the company finds its footing, and that the company plans to improve the production quality with the next release.
One other issue I have with pretty much any ballet DVD geared toward children (or book or whatever!) is that it focuses solely on girls. "Baby ballerinas" is what the viewers are called, and the sidekick dancers are girls. I understand this; I really do. But I have a boy. It would be nice if there were some love thrown to the boys who want to dance; they probably feel unusual enough as it is.
Overall, I think Caterina is a lovely contribution to the genre of children's ballet DVDs. I just hope they fix their sound problems sooner rather than later. It's nice to have a narrator who takes children through the terms in a clear fashion and shows them how to have an enjoyable class session. I like how encouraging and complimentary Caterina is toward the baby ballerinas (ballerinos) onscreen and at home. Mikko keeps asking to watch it, so something's clearly bringing him back each time!
Disclosure: I received a DVD to review.
Amazon links are affiliate, because I need to pay for dance lessons.
I try to seek out only products I think you would find
relevant and useful to your life as a natural parent.
If I don't like a product, I won't be recommending it to you.
That's how I roll. See my full disclosure policy here.
Teaching to mastery: How we naturally learn
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*My 9-year-old learns art techniques & origami by practicing them over and
over and over.*
[image: Hobo Mama wants you to know she's a professional blog...
Family Breakfast
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It’s no secret that our household loves to cook and eat. We love food, we
love communing around food, and I (particularly) love reading about food.
Food m...
DVD, a value of $21 total.
. 
. You can read 
introduction to a real ballet production and a sense of the story behind it (narrated by the animated Prima Princessa); they get to hear ballet terms and see them demonstrated by talented students from the School of American Ballet; and they get time to dance around, freestyle.
This is Mikko's version of a 
The Prima Princessa DVDs are priced at only $6.99! This fabulous price was set intentionally so parents of most any income level can afford to give their kids the gift of a ballet experience. If buying one isn't in your price range, though, or you want to preview before buying, check to see if your library has it. 
. 
, on sale right now for $10.97 on Amazon. 
A big congratulations to the winner of the 
of simple ballet instruction with a stage production that's narrated and explained by a flying ballerina fairy (P.P. herself). It's engaging for young kids, not least because it features young kids in the cutaway scenes.
Did I mention the DVDs are priced at only $6.99? I know, right?
(As an aside, the DVD is Region 1, which is for U.S. and Canadian DVD players. I am the one shipping it, and I will ship it worldwide. I am saying it's open to U.S. & Canada, since Region 1 DVDs will play only in U.S. and Canadian players, or potentially in region-free players. If you live elsewhere, you assume all risk of having the DVD not play for you. In other words, you're free to enter the contest if you're sure sure sure a Region 1 DVD will play in your machine, but I can't replace it or help you out if you win and it doesn't. Ok?)
I can only assume the PR rep saw one of my articles on ballet 
ended up in the mix as well). I 
You can 
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