Superhero Imagination Music with Bonnie

Bonnie is ALWAYS greeting with smiles and hugs when she walks in to Tiny Tribe, her arms usually loaded up with bags and bags of fun props for storytelling, singing, dancing, and pretending.  

Today Bonnie brought gold super hero masks which most of the kids were eager to try. Of course they also wanted to see what they looked like so we took lots of pictures for them to view. 

Each of our super-heroes possessed different special skills and qualities; like "niceness, strength, speed, magic, and fire power" to name a few.

Field Trip to the Toy Store and Moon Sand Play

The toddlers were excited to head out on their own little adventure today. After snack and circle time, we loaded up in the buggy and headed over to the local toy store to explore their puppets, doll house, train set, shopping carts, and bouncy ride-ons. The Beetles practiced all of the skills we have been practicing on our walks. We are working with them on learning to be respectful in public places, like waiting for turns, using our words and signs to ask for things, using quiet voices and calm bodies, and picking up after ourselves. Everyone had a lovely time. 

Upon our return, the toddlers stopped for a rest on the benches before we headed back inside to explore moon sand in the sensory table. 

Moon sand is different than regular sand because it's much finer so it molds into shapes and feels soft to the touch. The Beetles scooped, molded, and dumped it contently while they waited for their lunch to be ready. 

Taking A Close Up Look at Our Caterpillars

 

Today the Centipedes were excited to take a closer look at our classroom caterpillars. We read about the stages that they go through to become a butterfly and how these little critters someday may even fly across the world, migrating all the way to South America.

We looked at our science books and used the felt board as we read one of our favorite kid's books, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," by Eric Carle.  The Centipedes are at an amazing age were they are using creative thinking to take in so much new information about the world and combining it with what they all ready know. The differences between fact and fiction will become more clear as they grow but right now the world is still magical. Their understanding of it is a reflection of how they are working at integrating all the information they are getting exposed too. We will continue our exploration of the caterpillar during the next weeks as their metamorphosis process is witnessed and investigated by the class.

They were asked about what they think the caterpillars are thinking, doing, and such...

Lena: "They are thinking about when they are drinking water."

 Bodhi: "Drinking milk, from ants."

"They will have a Halloween party and a watermelon party and a sunny party."

Chase: "Fly, Flap their wings." when they become a butterfly.

Kaya: What are caterpillars going to do? "Eat water and eat food - doggy food. Make them feel good."

 Kaya: What do they turn into? "Butterflies"

 Austin:  What will caterpillars do?  "They are going to drink water and eat the leaves and eat everything."

Anna Lee:  "Eat oranges and water and coconut milk and food and Mac and cheese and then sit down and eat and turn into Sleeping Beauty."  What has the caterpillar become when it wakes up? "A princess, a Sleeping Beauty princess."

 Myla:  "Flowers, smell them and eat some leaves and eat some fruit and drink some juice and water.  And then them cocoon and then become a pink butterfly with rainbows all over him and violet and pink.

Beetles- Exploring Forms Of Transportation

This morning during circle time, we talked about different ways we can get from one place to another. The Beetles have all experienced being in more than one form of transportation. They each raised their hand and answered, "Me!", when Victoria asked them which form of transportation they have used.

Has anyone ever rode the city bus?

Or taken a trip by airplane?

How about a train?

They all have been on a bus, they get to school in a car each day, and some have even ridden on an airplane or train.

After circle time we headed over to the Junction for our morning walk. We used two ways to get there. Some of us walked while some rode in the buggy. While on walk we pointed out the different ways people get around. We saw people riding bicycles and motorcycles. We observed that a bus carries a lot of people in it. We couldn't keep count of how many cars we saw, there were too many.



Communicating Through Art

Toddlers use different forms of communication through out the day. They may use sign language, words or actions.  Art is a very important part of child development. Through art children learn communication skills, problem solving skills, social and emotional skills and skills that they can use to apply through out life. Today the toddlers were given a piece of paper so they could draw whatever they wanted. When asked what they were drawing they seemed to be excited to answer the following:

Katy; 'Orange triangle. Me Mommy'.

 Zoe;'Mama. Pink'.

 Kate; 'Mama'.

Chloe; 'Mommy'.

 Sam; 'Dad. Mom. No. Dad'.

 Wiley; 'Mama'.

Writing and Illustrating- The Tale of Princess Tree

 

 Myla-
Once upon a time there was a.....princess named Tree and she had on green gloves, a green crown, a green dress, brown eyes and brown hair. And green work shoes on too. Her work is that she just calls people on the phone somewhere and then she comes back to the castle.  She actually lives in a castle in New York with her dad. But her mom is alive, she's just not in this story.

Anna Lee- One day she went.... to Sleeping Beauty's castle. They watched a show together. They watched Sleeping Beauty. But Sleeping Beauty has a pink dress and pink slippers. They ate Mac-n-cheese and vegetables. Pink vegetables! Sleeping Beauty doesn't like Mac-n-cheese and she only liked her fruit. So she went home.

Aliza-On the way home.... Princess Tree saw Spider-Man and Superman in a bad guy house. The princess was so scared because they were trying to chase her. She tried to run back to her castle. Superman and Spider-Man said- "We are going to still try and catch that princess! "

Ava- Just as she was almost to her castle.... she got caught in a net and she got so trapped and they took her to a giant cage. They did it to make sure she is safe from the bad guys. She wasn't still scared anymore. Spider-Man and Superman are nice bad guys and they turned into princes. Princess Tree used her magic to turn them into a princes.

Lena-It was getting late so....they all got in Lena's mom's car and drove to a rainbow. It was in Seattle. It looked like all the colors. They went to the end of the rainbow and they found a baby deer. He was sick and his name was Dan. We tried to help the deer but the deer wouldn't come.

Kaya- A deer lost in forest. He's sick. Princess say "You want your mama? I mama. You baby. Ok?"
The deer said yes and they go camping.

The End.

Helping Hands

In just a few weeks some of our Beetles will be moving on to be Centipedes! It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming in the Beetle class and the Centipedes were moving on from being Beetles. Today the Centipede class had a very special task for the day. Lena, Austin, Chase and Anna Lee each helped guide, Wiley, Katy, Grant and Sam through each part of the day. This way the Beetles got to experience a Centipede day. During snack time each Beetle sat next to a Centipede so that they can practice  how to eat properly at the table. On morning walk, Austin was more then happy to help guide Wiley walk in a straight line and stay right behind their friends. Not only did the Beetles learn so much from the Centipedes, but the Centipedes also learned how to become leaders and how to be helpful to their friends.  

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Wednesday Field Trip to the Public Library

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Yoga and a Walk

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Firebird- performed by Tiny Tribers

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The Many Parts of Our Day

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Tiny Tribe Parent Education Night- Wednesday June 12th

People, including children, are not motivated by external rewards and punishments, but by feelings of belonging and significance in the world. Adlerian psychology takes into consideration what the child is thinking, feeling, and deciding about themselves rather than only considering their behavior.

Natural and Logic Consequences vs. Punishment-
Where did we get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, we have to make them feel worse first? Children do better when they feel better. Mistakes are opportunities to learn. We should focus on solutions, not punishments or rewards. We shouldn’t rescue children from their own life experiences. We should let them experience disappointment, elation, guilt, shame, joy, sadness, and anger so they can learn how to feel and express all of their emotions.

Setting Limits-
Children need to feel unconditional love and acceptance from the adults who care for them. We should talk to them, listen to them, play with them, sing with them, laugh with them, and learn from them. We should give them choices whenever possible. We should get down on their level, look them in the eyes, and speak using a calm voice. We should accept all of their emotions and help them find words to express them. We should also give them firm limits by following through with our word, with dignity and respect. We should give them the responsibility of working out their own problems. Our main goal should be to help children develop an internal locus of control, instead of relying on external means for controlling their behavior. We are human, too. When we make mistakes we should apologize and change our behavior. We should give them time to react and time to make decisions about their own behavior.

Do you want to know more about the positive discipline philosophy and learn how you can apply the tools and principals in your own family? Or maybe you have specific questions about food battles, temper tantrums, sleep issues, or potty training?
 

Developing Capable Young People
Tiny Tribe Parent Education Night
Wednesday, June 12th 6:00-8:00pm

If interested, please email Jena at jenainghram@yahoo.com

Jena has a BA in Human Services from Western Washington University and sixteen years of early childcare experience. Since 1996, she has worked as a nanny, an infant teacher, toddler teacher, preschool teacher, mentor teacher, program supervisor, and director. For the past nine years she has operated a small home-based childcare and preschool program, called Tiny Tribe, in West Seattle. In 2008, she and her husband, Scott, became the proud parents of their four-year old daughter, Layla. Jena is a trained facilitator of Steven Glenn's “Developing Capable Young People” parenting series and Jane Nelson's "Positive Discipline". She loves working with children and considers it her life's work.

A World Made with Shapes

This week we are carrying our exploration of shapes over a bit into our focus on creating stories.  Using our new felt board pieces they have been exploring some of the basic shapes and  seeing how they can work together to make new things.  The shapes provided so far have all been pieces that are divided into equal parts - fractions of our larger core shapes of rectangles, squares, triangles, and circles.   The Centipedes are using the pieces to create pictures and make stories together.

We hold strongly that children learn best through play, this is one of the ways that we have found to mix in hands on concepts of math into their play.  As they create their pictures and stories they are building their understanding of important math concepts as well as early literacy concepts and creative thinking.

Take a peak at their exploration of using shapes to illustrate their thoughts and construct their own narrative stories that bring their shapes to life: 

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