Now in its 2nd year of business, The Nest, in the heart of the Woodinville shopping district has earned its wings with over 900+ families, thriving enrichment classes, exceptional teaching staff and a strong network of community partnerships. The Nest is a flexible, hourly drop off center. This means when you need to get your hair done, run errands, attend a school meeting, go to doctor – you have somewhere fun, credible, safe and clean to care for your children ages 2+. The Nest offers wallet-friendly packages, even a trial package (which is designed more just to whet your palate). J
The Nest is spacious with over 4,000 square feet of play space and five different ‘rooms’ designed to engage your child through play and imagination. You will not find over stimulating computers and TV’s, you won’t find Wii’s and XBOX 360’s that send your child into a sensory frenzy. The Nest is one-of-a-kind with exceptional resources that will have your child begging not to leave (seriously, just about everyone says this).
From one mom to the next – The Nest is hands down the BEST for our Eastside families and community. I wholeheartedly endorse The Nest, its teachers and what it provides for our family.
Here’s the cherry on top! Like this post before June 1st and be entered into a drawing to win a free trial package at The Nest! (That’s FOUR hours of free time for you!)
Visit us online to learn more about our upcoming Spring Mini Session starting June 1 and Summer Camps starting July 6.
I (Miss Anita) thought you might like to eaves drop on an email conversation I had with Miss Allison. It involves your child’s mathematical foundation!
Here’s what Miss Allison emailed me: “Chanting numbers in a sequence (like saying 1, 2, 3…) is one skill. But counting objects and understanding the concept of what that quantity means are separate and more advanced skills. True counting implies an understanding of one to one ratios. From my (Miss Allison’s) personal experience as a mom, a pre-school teacher, a day care provider, big sister, babysitter and the kid who taught all the kids in the neighborhood to read before kindergarten, the number one is typically the hardest number for children to understand.
Finger plays and other counting games that are designed to teach one to one ratios tend to start higher, with a number like five and count down. Some examples would be Five Little Ducks, the Sea Shell poem from Creatures at the Ocean and Five Little Monkeys.
These counting down rhymes are more successful, in my experience than counting games that go up. Counting songs that go up tend to be more successful in teaching rhyming words. Examples of counting up rhymes would be This Old Man, The Ants Go Marching, Hickory Dickory, and Dr. Knickerbocker.
My question to you, since you have elementary school math experience, why does counting backwards make it easier to understand one to one ratio? It is obvious to me that it does. I just know it works better based on my experiences and common sense. I know it has a light bulb effect. I’ve seen that happen in a kid’s face. You get to one and all of a sudden the light goes on and they understand the concept. Any thoughts about the counting backwards phenomenon?
And I (Miss Anita) replied: “You’re right about the counting up rhymes like This Old Man, etc. Usually when those songs are sung they reinforce the rote memory of the number sequence. The ants march 1×1 and then 2×2 and then 3×3 etc. But you aren’t seeing those ants, pointing to them and counting them. You have to add something to make them a 1-1 teaching tool. That’s why, in our Kindermusik classes, we’ve added the ant counting cards for that song. With visuals of the ants, the children can see them and count them.
Another way to turn a song like This Old Man into a 1-1 ratio learning experience is to sing it with rhythm sticks. Every time you get to a number, stop and tap and count each tap. “This Old Man, he played one…stop…ONE TAP & SAY ONE…he played two… TWO TAPS and count out loud on each tap ONE, TWO…”
When it comes to counting backwards songs, I think the answer to the success is the emotional payoff of either excitement or satisfaction. Think about when a rocket launch counts down: 3 -2-1 BLASTOFF! So very exciting!
My boys learned to count backwards by watching the numbers on the microwave count down and chanting those numbers along with me. There was a huge payoff there, because our food was ready! When you count down, there is an END – either zero or one. (It’s really not the end since there are the negative numbers but we don’t go there with the little ones because their concrete minds aren’t ready for that yet.) So they get to one or zero and that’s the end… a very satisfying place to be.”
-posted by Miss Anita and Miss Allison, who hope that when you sing “Hickory Dickory Dock” with your child, you will add one-to-one ratio and do it like this:
‐ Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one (STOP and clap one time and say “one” while you clap it. Then say, “Let’s clap and count to one again. ONE.) and down he did run. Hickory Dickory Dock.
‐ Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck two (STOP and clap two times and count the two claps ONE, TWO. Then say, “Let’s count again. ONE. TWO) the mouse said, “Peek-a-boo.” Hickory Dickory Dock.
‐ Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock.The clock struck three (STOP and clap three times and count the three claps ONE, TWO, THREE. Then say, “Let’s count again. ONE. TWO, THREE) the mouse said, “ WHEE!” Hickory Dickory Dock.
‐ Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck four (STOP and clap four times and count the four claps ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR. Then say, “Let’s count again. ONE. TWO, THREE, FOUR) the mouse said, “ NO MORE!” Hickory Dickory Dock.
Finally, spring is here! The weather is warming, the sun is shining, and flowers and trees are blooming. April is national gardening month, and now is the perfect opportunity to get outside with your children and get your hands dirty. Gardening with your children, even at the most basic level, has many varied and wide-ranging benefits. Besides being a great opportunity to take in fresh air and get a little exercise, gardening creates teachable gardening moments that can last all the way through summer and into fall.
To begin with, a gardening project from the smallest pot on your back porch to a full-fledged vegetable garden requires planning. Being able to plan a project, implement it, and see it through to the finish will bring great satisfaction and increased self-esteem as you and your child work together as a team.
Meresa in her garden at age 4, with her cat Max.
Gardening together can be such a positive bonding experience. Some of my earliest happy childhood memories are with my mother in our family’s vegetable garden planting green beans. We would set up the bean poles and string twine between them for the vines to grow up; then my Mom would show me how to poke a hole in the dirt with my finger, place one bean in, and cover it over again–a great exercise of fine motor skills!
Did I mention that as a child I absolutes loved green beans? I devoured them every time my Mom made them. When I was four, my Mom took me to a u-pick field, gave me my own bucket and went a little further down the row and left me to merrily pick. When she returned about 15 minutes later, she was shocked to realize I had picked enough to fill the entire 5 gallon bucket. (Did I mention I loved green beans?) I figured, the more I picked the more I got to eat.
This brings me to my next point. Children who grow or pick their own food are more likely to eat fresh fruit and vegetables and make healthier eating choices. Now, I can’t guarantee your children will love vegetables as much as I did (and still do), but I bet if your child has the satisfaction of being involved in the process of growing and harvesting what they eat, they will be much more likely to at least try it. And, who knows? Maybe you will turn out to have a ravenous green bean, broccoli, or tomato eater. We can all hope.
Furthermore, planting and tending a garden provides real-life examples of life processes and opportunities for an increased understanding of ecology, interconnections in nature, and responsible care of the environment. An easy and inexpensive small project you can do indoors any time of year is to make a terrarium. There is a fantastic guide on how to make one from a soda bottle at www.nationalgardenmonth.org.
Another great resource for gardening with children is the Parents’ Primer at www.kidsgardening.org. It will help you learn all you need to know to get started gardening with your children.
-posted by Miss Meresa, who encourages you to let the horticultural adventure begin! And wishes you the best of luck as you start planning, planting, and growing together.
So many things that a child does can be written off to childish behavior, but I’m convinced that there are some basic manners and courtesies that we need to instill in our children. Don’t let good manners be a dying art form! Beyond the basic “please” and “thank you” here are a few things you can teach your child.
Getting on an Elevator:
Teach the child to stand away from the door at least 10 feet when waiting. This allows people who are on the elevator the opportunity to get off without getting mauled. This same rule of allowing the “Exiting” person applies to going into/out of rooms or buildings.
Holding a Door Open:
When opening a door to enter a building, glance behind and in front of you. Is another person approaching the door? Instead of letting it slam shut on the person, teach your child the simple courtesy of holding the door until the person has either gone through or had to opportunity to grasp the door with their hand.
No Interrupting:
Teaching a young child to wait their turn to speak requires practice and patience, but believe me, you’ll lose your patience more if you don’t teach them this habit! Gently tell a child to wait until you acknowledge them before beginning to speak. When I’m on the phone or speaking in person with someone, I’ve taught my children to put their hand on my arm or my hand. I hold their hand to acknowledge that they want my attention, then at a respectful and appropriate break in the conversation, I turn my attention to my child. Once they learn this, if they interrupt, I make them wait two minutes before getting to speak.
Greeting Someone:
Whether it’s someone who comes to your house, someone you planned to meet up with or someone you run into out and about, teach your children to say “Hello” and “Goodbye” to people. This tells the person they are important to you. At our house, we stand at the doorway and wave until our friends are out of our driveway rather than closing the door behind them the second they leave. We also taught our children to say “Hello, my name is _____________” when they meet someone the first time.
Cutting in Line:
They’ll learn this one fast enough once they’re in school and other kids catch them not following the rule, but save them the embarrassment and teach them early on: if there is a line for something (like at a restaurant, water fountain, the library check out, etc) teach the children to discern the end of the line and take their place in it, not to just walk up to the front.
No Double Dipping:
Okay, so you saw the Seinfeld episode about this, but your kids haven’t! With parties and potlucks and such, kids have a wealth of opportunities to put their spoon (licked) or their hand (also licked) back into a community bowl, so in the name of polite manners and for health reasons, teach them the “no double dipping” rule. If they need more salsa, teach them to use the serving spoon, not the spoon that just came out of their mouth.
-posted by Donna Venning, who confesses that she got the idea for this blog after nearly toppling over a kid who rushed onto the elevator as she tried to get off.
If the Activity Guide is the “meat and potatoes” of the At Home Materials, then the CD’s are dessert. This is the part that your child loves best, remembers, and asks for every day. And just like dessert, it is the culmination of a well-balanced meal of classroom activities and organized play from the book (or your own creative process) that you and your child do together at home.
I hear regularly from parents that the CD’s are a staple of all commuting, and that they are listened to at home, and at bedtime as well because their child will actually LISTEN to the CD’s over and over again.
My gut instinct tells me that they listen to their curriculum CD’s with such attentiveness because almost every song on the CD is related to an activity from class; memories when they listen to “Walk Along Rover”…. They are doing the steps of the dance in their heads when they hear “Jing Jang” or “Little Liza Jane”, and their hands become a rabbit and hop along their arms, their finger-ears flop, flop, flop, and their bunny eyes blink, blink, blink, and their bunny noses twink, twink, twink, as they listen to “I Saw a Little Rabbit.” A Kindermusik CD for an enrolled child is a doorway back to the classroom.
It is not just background music. I am quite sure if you gave a Kindermusik CD to a child who had never attended a class that they would enjoy the CD, but not like your children will. The combination of meat and potatoes followed by dessert is classic for a reason - it works!
Your child may not actually be interested in the CD at first; they may still want to listen to last semester’s CDs. But as soon as we’ve covered enough of the music on the CD with activities in class, your child will begin the process of transferring their love from Milk and Cookies to Fiddle Dee Dee. Most of the music on the CD is in a similar order to how it is introduced in class.
There are always tracks on a Kindermusik CD that we won’t use in class. These pieces are there to round out your child’s listening experience and to expose them to music they may not hear regularly. They also make the CD much more interesting to listen to.
However, these short forays into the unheard are important for another reason; they act like a recess for the child’s brain, which is working and learning while they are listening to the familiar classroom songs. Children need down-time to process what they have learned while they are in the throes of discovery.
Quiet time on the CD (whether it’s a short piece of classical music or a poem) gives them a few minutes to download before the next spurt of learning begins. This is why recess really is the most important part of your child’s school day, and why as college students we needed to take a break from studying every so often. Research shows that studying for extended periods of time is counter-productive. Every brain needs time off to process information.
Both of your story-books for the semester are also read on your CD’s. “The Animal Serenade” is on CD 1, and “This Little Piggy Played the Fiddle” is found on CD 2. (You’ll hear the voice of the founder of Kindermusik reading this book, and you’ll hear his rich bass serenading you throughout the Kindermusik repertoire of CD’s.)
On the CDs are several samples from the classical repertoire. The Scherzo from Shubert’s Trout Quintet, and The Flight of the Bumble Bee, by Rimsky Korsakov. I highly recommend Korsakov’s music, especially Scheherazade; it’s one of my all time favorite pieces of classical music.
Since Fiddle Dee Dee places an emphasis on stringed instruments, now might be a great time to check out some of the many classical pieces of music written for strings. A great place to start is Dvorak’s American Quartet, written while he was he was summering in Stillwell, Iowa, in the Czech community there. And you have some classical vocal music as well such as The Comic Duet of Two Cats by Rossini, and Summer is a’Cumin In, the first round ever to have been written down.
So, enjoy your CD’s and listen often. The more familiar your child is with the music, the faster they learn a new activity in class. And the more they learn, the sooner they are ready for extensions to those activities.
-posted by Miss Allison, who thinks that dessert is the best part of dinner!
Now in its 2nd year of business, The Nest, in the heart of the Woodinville shopping district has earned its wings with over 900+ families, thriving enrichment classes, exceptional teaching staff and a strong network of community partnerships. The Nest is a flexible, hourly drop off center. This means when you need to get your hair done, run errands, attend a school meeting, go to doctor – you have somewhere fun, credible, safe and clean to care for your children ages 2+. The Nest offers wallet-friendly packages, even a trial package (which is designed more just to whet your palate). J
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