Challenging Our Large Muscles

It was fun for everyone to walk across our balance beam in the yard this morning and jump off the end.

We worked together to take turns and give each other space.

After we jumped off the end, we ran back to get in line again.

Our new friend, Owen, joined in our play. He will be spending time with us in August while his regular school is being renovated. Please help make him feel welcome by introducing yourselves to Owen and his parents, Megan and Brian.

Finn thought falling off in the middle was so much fun! He crashed his body down on the grass and laughed with his friends.

Soon they all wanted to join in and play Finn's silly crashing game.

Our Classroom Coccons are Opening

The kids watched as three butterflies stretched their wings and began to move around inside our butterfly house this morning. They must have emerged from their cocoons sometime last night. We gave them a little bit of water and some nectarine, but so far they haven't eaten any.

Finn noticed the colors in the butterflies wings and we all looked at pictures of butterflies and talked about the many different kinds of butterflies there are, like monarchs, black swallowtails, cabbage whites, dogfaces, common blues, and buckeyes.

The butterflies in our classroom are called painted ladies.

We started with ten cocoons and now we have three butterflies. Hopefully, we will get to see some of them as they are in the process of emerging.

When they are strong enough to fly, we will set them free.

Beetles Share Their Many Faces

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Music with Bonnie

One of the fun and delightful things about learning new fun songs is learning the expectation of what comes next. As the children listen to Bonnie's lyrics and watch her doggy they are experiencing musical timing along with the thrill of anticipating the "surprise" jump of the doggy. The more they are familiar with songs like "Slippery Fish" the more they enjoy their ability to participate by knowing that the "uh-oh" comes and that the song will repeat again with something a little new or different for them to expect. In the "Bunny Hop" they are anticipating the rhythm and of the hop, hop, hop and are learning to express it with their body when they follow the music and do their hops too. Little things like this help them develop a sense of patience and social timing as they await what comes next.

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Beetles Explore Water Color Paintbrushes

Myla is seeing how she can squeeze the paintbrush and get more paint out.



Raya loved painting with her friends and seeing how she made the colors go onto her paper.



Nolan liked using orange the best.



Raya decided she needed one for each hand.

Park Fun!

Check out the Beetles doing their fun art project, and the whole gang at pocket park with some fun videos! :)

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Paint Stories

During Class Time today we all made paintings, we caught a few of their conversations as they were painting today, check it out!



Reid: "I'm painting a house."
Grace: "I'm painting a picture for my mommy"
Reid: "A house for my mommy. My house!"
Grace: "I'm painting a house for my grandpa and uncles."
Reid: "Are you painting a house Layla?"
Layla: "I'm painting a backyard."
Grace: "I'm painting flowers."
Finn: "I'm painting a house with paint in here, this is for all my moms and dads. Now look at all the colors in it! Whoa!"
Grace: "I'm building a horsey!"
Reid: "I'm building a house, and it's house painting day."
Finn: "My white turned into pink. Now I'm going to take all the blue paint off."


Eli told us about what he was painting and he said "I'm just making a painting." :)

Layla paints her backyard!

Finn experimented with the paintbrushes and the sizes.

Reid: "Look at it! I made some water. You guys want to try that too?"

Tiny Tribe Summer Camp

One of the best parts about my job is that I can continue to enjoy and love my "babies" even after they leave me and head off to big kid school. This is my crew of graduates who are entering kindergarten to third grade this year. I can proudly say that I changed each and every one of these kid's diapers. :)


I love each one of them too and they love each other. For six wonderful weeks this summer, I get to spend time with them again doing really fun things all around Seattle. I couldn't do it without the support of all my families and of course, the help of Carrie, Kara, Nancy, Jenna, Roberta, Ashley, Jennifer, and Victoria.

Storytime... Loving the Books and New Friends

Raya and Chloe had a great time looking at books together.



They looked at the pages and we found the bunnies together.



Raya helped turn the page after we talked about what the bunny was up to.



They were both very interested in looking at the art work and taking it all in.



We also read the book "Each Living Thing." They both wanted to touch the animals on each page and found them delightful and began giggling and laughing with each other. They reached over and held hands and made each other laugh even more.

Circle Time Learning

During Circle time today, Jenna talked more about all of our friends first and last names, and which letter they started with. Everyone got the chance to go up to the felt board and point out which letter their names started with.


Reid shows his friends that his last name starts with the letter "E"!


Aliza looks for her letter with her picture card in hand :)


Ava shows us her picture card and puts it over the letter "A"!


Finn shows us his letter :)


Afterwards, Jenna read the book "This Is Me." We all had fun naming our different body parts. Here, we pointed to our ears and forehead!

The Butterfly

There’s a story attributed to Henry Miller, the writer, about a little boy in India who went up to a guru who was sitting and looking at something in his hand. The little boy went up and looked at it. He didn’t quite understand what it was, so he asked the guru, “What is that?”

“It’s a cocoon,” answered the guru, “Inside the cocoon is a butterfly. Soon the cocoon is going to split, and the butterfly will come out.”

“Could I have it?” asked the little boy.

“Yes,” said the guru, “but you must promise me that when the cocoon splits and the butterfly starts to come out and is beating it’s wings to get out of the cocoon, you won’t help it. It is important not to help the butterfly by breaking the cocoon apart. It must do it on it’s own.”

The little boy promised, took the cocoon, and went home with it. He then sat and watched it. He saw it begin to vibrate and move and quiver, and finally the cocoon split in half. Inside was a beautiful damp butterfly, frantically beating its wings against the cocoon, trying to get out and not seeming to be able to do it. The little boy desperately wanted to help. Finally, he gave in, and pushed the two halves of the cocoon apart. The butterfly sprang out, but as soon as it got out, it fell to the ground and was dead. The little boy picked up the dead butterfly and in tears went back to the guru and showed it to him.

“Little boy,” said the guru, “You pushed open the cocoon, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said the little boy, “I did.”

The guru spoke to him gravely, “You don’t understand. You didn’t understand what you were doing. When the butterfly comes out of the cocoon, the only way he can strengthen it’s wings is by beating them against the cocoon. It beats against the cocoon so it’s muscles will grow strong. When you helped it, you prevented it from developing the muscles it would need to survive.”

It’s a story every parent and professional should remember. . .

Handing a child the toy he wants instead of letting him crawl across the room for it or try his best to crawl for it; fulfilling his every whim; loading him down with toys and other shiny beautiful things before he really needs or desires them; emphasizing the importance of grades in school instead of the importance of education. . . all of these things tend to weaken the muscles a child should be developing on his own so that when the time comes to function independently, he will have the strength he needs.

SO OFTEN, WHAT SEEMS HARSH OR CRUEL IN NATURE, IS IN REALITY WISDOM AND KINDNESS FOR THE TIME AHEAD.

Rainy Day: Sponge Painting & Beading

Nolan made a bracelet with noodles and foam beads. He showed us his work while he was stringing on more noodles.

Eleanor had a great time mixing the paint colors together to make rainbow shapes. She used all of the shapes and said they were "rice crispies!"


John painted with the sponges and decorated his paper with all of the face stamps depicting different emotions; sad faces, happy faces, surprised faces, and mad faces.


Lena was very proud of the foam bead and noodle bracelet she made. After making her bracelet she colored her noodles with markers.

Saige preferred not to use the foam beads and instead chose to use all noodles to make her very own "noodle necklace."

Layla used all of her favorite colors to make her foam bead necklace.

Finn only wanted to use two noodles and make the rest of his necklace out of foam beads. He also colored his noodles with markers when he was all done.

Luka enjoyed using the sponges to paint shapes and faces onto her paper. When using the triangle sponges she said they look like pieces of pizza and named her art, "pizza paper!"

The Life Cycle of Butterflies

Just like one of our favorite classroom books, Eric Carle's story of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", our ten classroom caterpillars have all built tiny houses around themselves, called cocoons. We continue to watch them each day so we will notice any changes when they are ready to come out. It will be exciting to see butterflies emerge in a few days.

Metamorphosis is the name for the transformation from a larva into an adult that occurs in some insects. The Butterfly goes through four stages to become adult butterfly.There are 4 Stages:

Egg: Female Butterflies lay their eggs on plants to enable Caterpillar (later stage) to get the food from plant leafs.

Larva: The larva, or caterpillar, emerges from the egg after few days. The caterpillar spends most of its time eating.

Pupa: The Caterpillar forms a protection shield called Pupa, or cocoon, when it has finished growing. Most of the transformation takes place in side the cocoon.

Butterfly: When the Pupa has finished transformation the Butterfly emerges. The adult Butterfly then lays eggs on plants and the cycle continues.

Digger Knocking a Neighbor's House Down