What we are all about...

Tiny Tots and Tall Tales originated as a project to provide excellent quality, home based Educare for infants and toddlers. We immigrated to Namibia from New Zealand at the end of 2014 and I needed to find something that resonated with my gentle parenting methods in terms of childcare for my 18 month old toddler. Unable to find a child care service that I was happy with, I decided to start my own, home-based school. As a teacher with over 7 years teaching experience and exposure to the New Zealand Early Childhood Education system, I decided to design a programme that resonates with my own education philosophy and my stance as a parent. From my teaching experience it has become clear that absolutely all education systems, from conventional to alternative, are flawed. All children are individuals and what works for one child will not necessarily work for the next one. The idea with this project, is to expose children to a variety of education philosophies, from Montessori, Waldorf and Forest school methods to the Cambridge jolly phonics early literacy programme. All of this with a healthy dose flexibility and spontaneity, with the focus being on the children always, working with their interests and their pace.

The foundations this project is built on are:

1) Parent involvement - creative ideas, constructive input… Parents should feel that they are part of the exciting activities and learning that happens in their little one’s day. Parents should feel free to join the kids for the day if they so wish, do a project with them, play with them and to continue the learning themes we cover at school, at home. They should also feel completely safe and happy leaving their child in the care of our programme.

2) Our children’s health. We have a very strict health policy in that, when a child is sick, he/she shouldn’t come to school. As much as possible, I would like our kids to be healthy and robust, something I have noticed is lacking in other schools, as kids constantly infect one another with snotty noses, eye infections, coughs etc.

3) Active learning activities and stimulation. The children will be exposed to basic numeracy and literacy (yes, even at this young an age!) in the form of games, music, creative activities and art.  Learning should be fun, practical, concrete and stimulating, using basic Montessori, Cambridge and Waldorf schooling principals.

4) Emotional learning. I want children to use an emotional language at school where they feel safe to talk about their feelings and express what it is that they feel they need. When a child behaves in a way that hurts another etc., all parties involved need to be able to express what happened, how they feel, and to be kept safe and close to the teacher (as opposed to getting ‘time out’) until they feel calm enough to engage in constructive activities again. I do not believe in punishment at this young an age and prefer a gentle and emotional investment policy to be used at school.

5) Imaginative play. The children will have a space to engage in their own fantasy world of imagination. As they get older, they will be encouraged to engage others in their imagination and to create games together. The teacher will encourage playing games of ‘let’s pretend’ like pretending to be different animals etc.

6) Sensory stimulation. At least once a day,  the kids will experience a sensory activity, be it playing with water, with mud, with clay, cornflour paints etc. They need to get messy and engaged and be completely and utterly happy :)

7) Instilling a love for nature in the children. We are planning on building a chicken coop with laying hens. The kids can visit the chickens every day and collect the eggs. We have a lot of herbs and plants in the children’s playground. I want them to help plant herbs, smell them, work with the earth, pick tomatoes or lettuce to nibble on when they feel like it and all the while respecting the plants and the animals.

8) Music. Such a brilliant way for emotional release for children. The children will be exposed to beautiful classical music and music that their parents find inspiring and uplifting. They can play musical instruments and dance with abandon at least once a day.