Individual Reading Time

 Every day after lunch all of our kids go to their mats for individual reading time while the teachers clean the kitchen, change diapers, and take daily quotes.

 Anyone with a one-year-old can imagine how difficult it would be to keep four of them on their mats at the same time. For weeks now, we have literally been "herding cats"during this time. One would crawl off their mat to go play at the train table. By the time I got over there to bring them back another was crawling under the loft. You get the picture.

Today all of our Beetles stayed on their mats during individual reading time and looked through books independently. 

Amazing things can be accomplished with a lot of kindness, a great deal of firmness, and tons of repetition.

Beetles: Circle Time and Free Play

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Library Story Time

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A Moment Of Free Play

Katy concentrated on scraping her spoon on this wooden piece of pretend candy. She periodically pretended to eat spoonfuls of it as she played independently.

 Grant sat next to the musical instrument basket, slowly exploring each one. He loved this African nutshell shaker. He shook it again and again, squealing each time he made the very loud sound.

Chloe sat with the container that holds our water bottles. She took each water bottle out of the bag, talking to herself as she worked, "My Wiley... this mama... here Katy." She was mimicking what she sees her teachers do each day when we hand out the water bottles.

 Wiley opened and shut the top of the horse-drawn carriage. He pushed it around the room on his knees and then put some small people inside. 

 Zoe brought the rain stick over to me and asked, "Help?" I showed her how to tip the stick upside-down. She watched the tiny balls inside drop down through the maze of little openings.

Girls Day!

We had a small crew this morning and it was all girls. So we had a fun girls day together. You can check out the smilebox to take peak at our wonderful girls having fun together.

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Fun at Pocket Park

Since we only had two beetles and the sun was out, we decided to go to Pocket Park. The beetles were really excited to be out of the stroller after we took a short walk!

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Centipedes Explore the Neighborhood

 The preschoolers walked through the neighborhood today to take pictures and visit some of our favorite neighborhood attractions like, Northwest Art and Frame, Great Harvest Bread Company, Petco, QFC, The Husky Deli, Curiosity Kids, and The Sneakery.

 The teachers will print out the photos to add to a kid-created book that we started making last month. Once we finish it, the book will be added to our classroom library.

  Sunny Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet.

Come and play,

Everything's A-OK

Friendly neighbors there,

that's where we meet

It's a magic carpet ride
Every door will open wide
To Happy people like you--

Learning Circle Time Basics

 Chloe notices her picture, and Chase's, on the back of the letter cards. We expose the waddlers to capitol letters during circle time by associating the names of all of our friends from school with each letter.

I wish I had a little box, to put my letter C in.

I'd take him out and say "How do you do?" and put him back again.

This song is just a fun song for Fall. We toss our fabric leaves into the air and watch them come floating down. Waddlers love repetition so we usually sing it again and again.

Leaves are Falling, falling, falling 

leaves are falling to the ground

The Beehive Song is one of our favorites. We hide five felt bees behind their felt beehive and wait for them to come out with a buzz. This little song teaches kids to count from one to five.

Here is the beehive, and where are the bees?

hiding away where nobody sees.

Watch and we see them come out of the hive...

1,2,3,4,5!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Learning Through Class Time

 In the beginning of each school year, we spend most of the first month getting the waddlers comfortable with new routines. During free play in the morning, the waddlers are encouraged to move around the classroom and chose which activity they would like to explore.

 Class time is different than free play because we expect the waddlers to participate and remain focused on one activity for a while. Many of them are not use to sitting at a table and in the beginning it takes effort just to keep them engaged and in their chairs for longer than two minutes. :) Zoe is a great role model for the new Beetles. She is so excited about class and circle time!

 

 To keep little minds and bodies engaged, we started out our class time project with a few markers. In the beginning, they only need one marker at a time. The usually try coloring with it and also explore taking the lid on and off. 

 When the waddlers tired of those, we brought out some stickers and then some stamps. Blythe and Katy stuck the stickers on their papers and then pulled them off again. That's okay, they don't know they are creating "art", they are just enjoying the process.

Some of our older Beetles have used these items many times before. They are more focused on drawing on the paper, sticking the stickers on, and making stamp marks on their papers. Chloe and Zoe both chose different color markers and made intentional lines all over their papers.

What is Art?

At Tiny Tribe we believe that Art is each person's individual expression and interpretation of the world, their own feelings, and their experiences. Art involves creative thinking and problem solving because by creating art, children use their minds to form new and original ideas. We don't do a great deal of "cookie cutter" craft projects or coloring pages because we believe that those projects offer little in the way of creative development. I have seen many preschool hallways hung with art projects that all look the same, many made up of pre-cut teacher-created pieces glued together in a certain or "correct" way. I suppose those projects do teach kids how to follow direction, but I wouldn't exactly call them "Art".

Preschool children are in  the manipulative period and learn through experimentation. Manipulation  is a natural developmental stage that cannot be rushed or skipped. During this period, the art process is self-rewarding and learning done  through the art process IS the goal. It is important for children to have freedom of expressions and decision. As adults, we can help guide children in expressing  themselves, observing their environment, and discovering how art materials can be used.

Kids do love to make useful things that they can share with their families. Today we used markers and our imaginations to create our very own unique cardboard puzzles to take home and put together with mom and dad.

Making Our "Me" Collages

 At the beginning of each school year, we spend the first month talking and learning about all of the little things in our lives that are the most important to us. Each of our preschoolers will bring in pictures of their lives, their parents, siblings, homes, favorite toys, grandparents, pets, and any other cool images they want to share about. Each of them will have a turn showing their friends the images during circle time. Austin loved talking about each picture, as you can tell by his smile, and his friends had many questions to ask. He told all of his friends about going fishing with his uncle,  horseback riding, sitting on Santa's lap, and a funny story about a turkey nipping his grandma's behind. Next week, we will create collages that will be laminated and hung around our classroom. Each child will have a special place in the room that connects their home life and school life.

 Myla chose this picture of her and her sister, Hailey, as her "favorite one... because it's my sissy and my baby, Cupcake Clementine, and my baby car seat". Sharing about ourselves during circle time builds confidence speaking in front of people. We learn to wait for our turn to talk, to raise our hands, and to ask and answer questions.

Myla was excited to show Kaya that she was in one of Myla's pictures. She pointed out Eva and Kaya and told Kaya, "See, there's you and there's Eva. You're my friend, right?"

Music and Movement with Bonnie Massey

Bonnie came in today, and below is a smilebox with some pictures!

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Stickers- Using Our Fingers for Important Stuff

Today, the Centipedes had the option of stickers as one of their class time activity choices. The stickers were letters, so as they worked Jena talked with the kids about the different letter stickers and the sounds that they make.  Some of the preschoolers chose to use their letters to spell names and words. Saige asked us how to spell words and put them in a row on her paper. Myla chose letters that were symbolic to the people in her life. "This is an H for Hailey." (her sister)

 Saige and Myla used hand-eye coordination and their fine motor skills so peel the white backing off of each sticker. Then they used their fingertips to fasten the sticky side of the small stickers onto the paper. For adults, this may seem easy but for preschoolers, this can be a challenging task.

Lena concentrated as she peeled the paper backing off of the letters. Creating art with stickers will benefit Lena as she is learning to write. With lots of fine motor practice, Lena's fingers will soon be skilled enough to hold a pencil correctly and strong enough to use the correct amount of pressure for writing.

 

Anna Lee, our proud and youngest Centipede (2yrs), got some help from Jena with the first step in using stickers by taking the backing off of the stickers. Then Anna Lee was ready and eager to accomplish the second step by putting the stickers onto her paper. Practice in fine motor skills will be important for learning life skills too, like dressing and undressing, which she has been doing so much more of lately now that she is a Centipede.