Tiny Tribe

Math Ideas- Childcare Resources

Classroom Jobs for Preschoolers

The Yoga Garden Game

Today, we played the Yoga Garden Game. The Beetles were excited and wanted to do all of the poses from the game.

Here is Eva practicing the snake move.

Lena is reaching up high to do the Morning Glory move to become a flower.

All of the Beetles are good at doing the Downward Dog!

The Tree pose is very tricky but Kaya got the hang of it quickly.

Unfortunately, Grace was sick today and Jennifer needed to stay home to take good care of her....so we had to cancel yoga. Fortunately, however, we had a back-up plan and immediately set to work preparing for a much-talked-about "fancy" tea- party.

We sat the table with real tea cups and saucers, sugar bowls and creamers, flowers, and candles.

Luckily, we had baked and decorated a whole plate full of cupcakes just this morning to celebrate Nancy's twenty-first birthday. :)

We lit the candles to set the mood and everyone joined together to sing "Happy Birthday to Nancy".

Raya's big brother, and Tiny Tribe alumni, True, was here to lend a helpful hand.

Myla, her mom, and her big sister, Hailey, made some yummy green chocolate treats to share.

Ella was excited to wear some fancy dress-up clothes and a hat to the tea party.

Austin couldn't believe his sweet luck- cupcakes, chocolate covered pretzels, and tea with sugar! Yum!

Eli decided that his tea was actually too sweet to drink- go figure, he did put about ten heaping spoonfuls of sugar in it!

Luka poured some cream in her tea.... mmmmm....

Well, Fancy Nancy sure did enjoy her spur-of-the-moment birthday tea party.

Even the Beetles came back from their walk to a special set table of tea and cupcakes.

The toddlers were very careful with the special glass dishes

and very eager to pour their own cream and sip the sweet tea.

The kids are all still talking abut the special and fun morning tea party.

I think we are going to have to make this a regular event.

Musical Drama with Bonnie Massey

Bonnie has been gracing Tiny Tribe with her beautiful smile every Thursday

for the past five years now.

She comes right after lunch, usually carrying bags and bags of props, costumes,

instruments, books, puppets, and music.

She is greeted by twelve little people, ready to dance, sing, pretend, and play.

As you can see by their faces, we LOVE Bonnie and we are so happy that she is a part of our week.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Pajama Day Party!

Sometimes we do things at school because we are trying to teach important lessons.
Sometimes we do things, like wearing our pajamas, because it's just plain 'ol fun.

The toddler class pretended, played, danced, sang, crawled, built, sat, read, cuddled, giggled, smiled, and laughed just like they do everyday. Only today they did it in their pajamas...

with the help of some really cute Centipede helpers, Ava and Aliza.

Tea Time with My Girl

After a full week of out-of-town guests, we were seriously off our normal routine.

Our Iowa family headed home yesterday and this morning we were paying for it with a heaping dose of whining, demanding, and tantrums!

I can't really blame her. She had three doting aunties providing for her every whim for an entire week. She was eating what she wanted and when she wanted it, sleeping in our bed, and skipping school in favor of sight-seeing around Seattle.

She was showered with kisses, gifts, and attention. My sweet girl loved every minute of it. Our normally quiet evenings were loud, messy, and fun. Our usually orderly mornings were spontaneous and full of laughter.

So my general plan for getting things back on track today was to be kind and firm and stick to the routine. I wasn't going to give in to her whining and complaining when she didn't like what we were having for lunch and I was definitely going to make her take a nap with the rest of the kids when she cried to go upstairs instead and watch a show.

She was going to get a crash course back to reality.... and she was going to get it cold turkey.

And...... we are still going to do all of that tomorrow..... but it turns out that what we both really needed today was some time to be alone together. We just needed some time to talk about how much we have loved spending time with our family and how empty and quiet the house feels after they've gone.

Trapping Those Tricky Leprechauns

All week those tricky leprechauns have been playing silly jokes on us! On Monday, they flipped our calendar numbers upside down and re-arranged our coats and shoes into a large shamrock pattern on the floor of the coat room. Yesterday, they flipped our clothing bins upside down and after nap we found tiny green footprints and crumbs.... leading away from the Irish soda bread that had been cooling off on the kitchen counter! This morning, we arrived to find even more tiny green footprints all around the coat room and our cubbies.

We decided to build a house for a leprechaun so we could try and lure one and catch it in the act of trickery. We collected all kinds of art materials and recycled objects for our project.

The preschoolers had all kinds of ideas about putting the materials to good creative use. Eli set to work taping up one of the cereal boxes to make a bedroom for the leprechaun to sleep in.

Nolan and Austin worked together to draw green marks all along the egg carton bridges that we taped between two of the boxes for our leprechauns to walk across.

Using our imaginations and working collaboratively with our friends was fun. We giggled and laughed a lot as we worked together.

Layla and Eli worked together to hang scarves and attach straws to make a secret hole (or trap door) that would fall down when a leprechaun tried to walk on it.

Nolan demonstrated how two leprechauns might walk up the stairs to get to the shamrock that Layla cut out to decorate our little house.

Here is our finished leprechaun village. After class time we walked over to the grocery store and picked out some golden eggs and some Lucky Charms so we can use them to lure the leprechauns into our creation. We'll check first thing in the morning to see if we have caught any!