Hard Shoe Practice Board

I never would have thought that my little miss would ever need to be told to make more noise! But when it comes to dancing in her hard shoes she turns into a delicate little flower and needs encouragement to really bang the floor and to put it simply, make more noise.

The only floor in our house that she can practice her hard shoe on is the kitchen floor. Unfortunately it's very thick lino which really muffles the sound. You may wonder why she doesn't just dance on the deck outside - well... The first thing she did when she got her brand new (not cheap!) hard shoes was go out on the deck to play around with them and got a nice chip out of the toe from one of the nails in the deck. So no more dancing on the deck!!!!

We had a builder doing some work on our fence and as he was packing up I noticed that he had a plywood board that he used to catch any debris from falling down the bank. I asked what he was going to do with it and he said it was just scrap and that I was welcome to it if I liked. I happily took it off his hands, sanded down a few rough spots, covered the edges with duct tape, and voila we have a hard shoe practice board! The board is only about 80cm x 120cm so the little miss can't practice whole dances on it, but it's perfect for practicing skip bangs etc and making noise. :)