Doesn’t every little girl love ballerinas? After finishing Rapunzel, I had some new ideas for my puppets’ hair. I decided a ballerina would be the perfect puppet for trying a new design idea. Although ballerinas often wear their hair in a bun, I think girls love dolls with long hair; this ballerina has her hair up and out of the way, but still has all that lovely hair to swing around.
To make the ASL sign for dance, make one hand be the floor and the pointer and middle finger of the other hand the legs dancing. The Lifeprint site shows the sign, with the first row showing dance and the second row showing the part to add to make it dancer. Kindersigns shows the sign for dance, with an animated cartoon. (Don’t count on different baby sign programs to use all ASL; many use some made up signs as well.)
If the special girl in your life loves ballerinas, she has probably already read or seen Angelina Ballerina. We have two Angelina videos in our home as well as one book, a couple sticker books, and matching dolls. The books are actually fairly well done, since they came before the shows and commercial craze for the character. Of course, I have mostly seen the books that came before the show, so ones based upon the show may be of lower quality.
My daughter picked this book at the library, expecting the main character to like ballet. Instead, the main character is a tomboy who likes baseball. She does end up enjoying ballet at the end, but it is mostly her friend who comes to love it.
For those who have daughters who are just coming into the age of ballerina love, check out Bella Ballerina. We actually own this one as well as the Swan Lake version. (I got the Swan Lake one for five dollars due to the box being broken.) They are definitely fun for the girls; although now that my older daughter takes ballet, she does not use it as often. The youngest will sometimes want to just watch the video and whenever there are friends over who do not have it, they want to watch it and get out the dance mats.
Laura's Left Hook 