Yoga with the Centipedes

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The Light in Me Sees the Light in You

There's a light in me, there's a light in you....   

Whatever language you speak,
Whatever your point of view...       

Whatever people may say,
Whatever people may do.
  There's a light in you
You must let your light shine through.

 The light in me, sees the light in you.

Namaste.

Trip to the Kenney Home

Today we visited our friends at the Kenney Home. We were greeted with toys and games, as usual. We had a great time interacting with the residents there, as well as getting to know them a bit better. Ava and Myla took turns reading to the residents, as well as their dog visitor.

Myla shook Dorothy's hand and said "Thank you very much" as part of the end of the fire fighter song we sang together. Everyone walked around shaking hands and thanking the resident "fire fighters". We also sang songs like 'Old MacDonald' together and the kids pretended to be animals moving around on the farm. The toddlers and preschoolers also had fun showing off some of their dance moves and one of the aides decided to join in and dance with us too.

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Creating Our Very Own Name Books

Our New Class Pet, Cinderella, The Leaf Bug

Our Leaf bug  is actually a Giant Spiny Stick insect (Extatosoma tiaratum). He or she (we don't know yet which we have) eats blackberry bramble so if you happen to see some, clip us a few leaves and bring them on in. Our leaf bug will soon be moving on up to a new and bigger aquarium. Hopefully, if it is a female, we will see some eggs and baby leaf bugs soon.

Playdough to Plato- Reinforcing Skills for Reading

We have started incorporating some of the new ideas for introducing reading skills to beginning readers into our curriculum from the Playdough to Plato program, developed by one of our Tiny Tribe parents, Malia Hollowell. During circle time, we played a game of Letter Hide-and-Go-Seek. We gave each preschooler a card with an upper case letter on it and hid the corresponding lower case letters around the room for the kids to find. When we returned to the circle, each preschooler shared with their friends which letter they found, the sound it makes, and words that start with that letter.

Luka

Nolan

Myla

Layla and Eleanor

To wrap up circle time, we sang a name song, to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O". We used our rhythm sticks to tap along to the song, noticing the number of taps we heard for each name. For some of our friend's names, like Myla, we counted out four taps (or four letters) while for other names, like Eleanor, we counted seven letters.

I have a friend who has a name and Layla is her name- O.
L-a-y-l-a, L-a-y-l-a, L-a-y-l-a and Layla is her name- O.

While singing, we held up our fingers as we sang each each letter.

Shape Collaging with the Beetles

Today for class time, the Beetle's made shape collages. Before starting on the collages, we talked about all the different types of shapes, and what color they were. They had fun telling each other what color shape they were pasting onto their papers.

Eva was careful to use enough glue to paste down her shapes.

Lena found a pink circle

Kaya picked out a purple circle to match her purple shirt. When she saw the purple circle she pointed to her shirt :)

Raya is concentrating on gluing all of her different shapes down on to her paper.

Treats at QFC

Today the Centipedes and True, a Tiny Tribe graduate went on a rainy day walk to PetCo and QFC. We saw our friend Candie at QFC and she was nice enough to give us special samples of cheese, olives and even a cookie! We're always excited to see Candie :)

True wanted to stop by the Lobsters and count how many there were inside. Everyone had fun guessing how old each of them were.

Next stop....the olive bar! Candie gave everyone a sample. Their favorites were the black olives and the tomato stuffed green olives.

Austin and Saige tried the black olives and thanked Candie :)

Luka said olives tasted better when eaten off fingers!

John tried it out and agreed :)

Candie then took us over by the bakery and gave everyone a chocolate chip cookie. Ella showed off to the camera all the chocolate chips in hers.

Thanks Candie!

Creative Minds Explore Play Dough

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Morning Walk to The Totem Pole

Jennifer had to take Anna Lee to the doctor this morning so we had to reschedule yoga. Fortunately, however, the sun was shining so we decided to go for an outing instead. Since we have moved to our new school, there are a lot of places we planned to check out in our new neighborhood.

We had not yet walked the short five block walk down to the Rotary View Point Park and checked out the totem pole. We've been talking to the kids about it for a while so we packed up our gear and headed out. We also thought it would give us an opportunity to stop at the fire station on the way back and see the fire engines.We stopped to check out a big cannon, built in 1918, at the Western Legion along the way.

 

When we reached the park, the kids were excited to run in the grass and 

check out the view of the city.

The totem pole was really tall and super cool. 

We noticed a beaver, a pelican, and killer whale, and an eagle.

Unfortunately, for poor Eli, we had to leave the park and head over to the fire department sooner than planned. Just seconds after I took the above photo, he collided with Austin and wiped out while running on the cement path right by the totem pole. Thank goodness we were only three blocks away from our neighborhood fire department. Eli was so brave and such a little trooper. 

We need to send a huge thank you to the wonderful fire fighters and EMTs that wrapped him up, checked him all out, and made us all feel a whole lot better!

Tiny Tribe Alumni Visit

Seattle Public Schools are closed this week for Mid-Winter Break. While school closures can be a scheduling pain for working parents, they do provide a great opportunity for some of our Tiny Triber's older siblings to join us as helpers in the classroom. Myla loved having her big sister, Hailey, with her at school today. Hailey, seven years old and in first grade, was helpful and encouraging with the toddler and preschoolers. She was quite the celebrity, as many of them wanted to sit next to her and hold her hand on walk. Hailey graduated from Tiny Tribe in 2009 and most of the teachers were teaching here  then, so it's an amazing experience for us to see what kind of a kid she's growing up to be. Hailey is kind, helpful, loving, smart, thoughtful, and creative. She is a great problem solver and without hesitation, she steps right in to mediate an argument or give a comforting hug. We love you sweet girl, thanks for all your help today, we really appreciate it.

Exploring Colors- Art and Science Merge

Active learning takes advantage of the child's natural desire to move, manipulate, 

touch, create, and experiment.

They love (and need) opportunities to test out their own theories about how things work and to explore with materials in an open-ended way.

They are gaining experience at discovering relationships and making comparisons.

How can I use different amounts of pressure and my budding fine motor skills to suction up the jello from my cup and then release it into the molds?

What happens when I add blue jello to red? Yellow to red? Blue to yellow?

How can I make pink?

 Maybe red and yellow makes pink since we don't have any white and yellow is the lightest color. Maybe I should add more yellow.

I'm making blue and red circles. I'm going to eat blue and red circles. 

Simple materials like a few boxes of jello, some eye droppers, and a few different containers (ice cube trays, muffin tins, and candy molds) is all that our little scientists need to explore color mixing.

What happens if I pour the mixture out? It feels sticky. It smells yummy.

Children learn best when they have control over their choices to use the materials as they wish.

Children use materials in far more creative and innovative ways than we could ever plan for them.

Research indicates that when we work on a task that we find stimulating and interesting, called intrinsic learning, we learn more effectively. The best part of today's science/art explorations? We get to eat what we created for snack. :)