East Bay Baby

We just attended our third session of the Tiny Tots Class for 12-18 month olds, run by the Fremont Parks and Recreation. I’ve been holding off on doing a review on the class for a couple weeks now, mostly because I wanted to see how things progressed and because I wasn’t sure what my take on it was. However, after the third class now, my opinions are solidifying, and I now feel comfortable writing about the class.

As some background, a few years ago, I took my niece to a series of parent participation classes on San Luis Obispo. She was about 1 1/2 years of age at the time. The class consisted of indoor free play, circle time with songs, optional crafts, and snack time. In addition, there was outdoor play time – half of the parents would go outside and watch the kids while the other half of the parents learned parent-y things from the instructor (subjects included how to deal with new siblings, how to keep birthday parties from going out of control, etc.), and then the parents would then switch. I thought the format and activities were fantastic, and I really thought my niece benefited from the parent participation classes (socially, in particular).

So when I saw that Fremont seemed to have something similar, I was really excited and signed up myself and my son. As to be expected, things are a bit different. The class itself is 1 1/2 hours long. It consists of free play time (where kids can read books, play with toys that are available, color, etc.), then circle time where we have story time and/or songs, a craft time, and then another circle time to close (either more songs, more stories, or some other activity like playing with the parachute).

The toys available are fine – you won’t see the newest shiniest Thomas the Train here, but there are good basic toys that have seen a lot of use through the years. And with kids, they’ll be excited to play with something that’s not their own anyway. The good thing about these Tiny Tot classes is the social interaction – my son has other little kids to see and interact with (though with my son, there’s less interaction, and more observation). And further, I think it’s beneficial that he’s getting experience with more structured activities. At home, he just does whatever he wants – there’s free play all the time. Sometimes we break out the crayons, but when he loses interest, he moves on to something else. With the Tiny Tots class, there’s allotted time for certain activities, and at the very least, my son is getting used to structure.

look what I can do!

However, my biggest complaint at this point is the craft time. My son is now 16 months old. He really isn’t interested in the crafts at all. The first week, we made caterpillars (a la The Hungry Caterpillar) by painting egg cartons green. The end product was admittedly cute. However, trying to get a toddler to paint the egg carton is almost a joke. The kids seemed more interested in painting their hands and the back of their throats than the carton. And then there was the Easter egg dying for a belated Easter egg hunt. Dye everywhere. I was of mixed feelings of this whole craft thing – I keep thinking that the experience itself is useful, even if my son doesn’t really “get” the crafts, and it gets him familiar with art supplies and craft products. But more and more, I think I’m just disgruntled with the whole idea, because I end up doing all the crafts while trying to wrangle my son. But perhaps those of you out there with kids can reassure me that this experience is all beneficial and that I should bear with it and keep “helping” my son with the crafts projects. It seems that many of the other parents in the class share the same opinion.

There also seems to be a lot of “downtime”.  Perhaps this complaint is due to my increasing ADD… but there’s a lot of time allotted for transitioning from one activity to the next, while the instructor gets preparation done.  For example, when it’s time for circle time and we all gather on the rug with our kids, the instructor often takes this time (5-10 minutes) to get the crafts set up before circle time begins.  My kid will sit still with me for about 5 minutes, but then gets pretty antsy afterwards, especially when there’s nothing going on.  So when circle time does begin, he’s ready to walk around and won’t sit very still in my lap.  But, perhaps it’s just my kid and I should be more “pro-active” in teaching him to sit still for longer periods of time.  Any advice on this particular matter?  I’m new to parenting, and I was the youngest child in the family, after all.

Would I register my kid for this even again? At this age, probably not.   Although I recognize how valuable the class is in terms of providing him with time for social interaction and for providing a little structure to his day, I think this could be achieved via other methods that are, well, free.  He doesn’t seem to get much out of the craft time, which is what distinguishes the Tiny Tot Program from the Baby Time Program at the Union City Library, which is free. And I really can’t justify the $85 registration fee for giving me the opportunity to make kiddie crafts while keeping my son away from the door or from dumping out buckets of Legos. However, perhaps in a few months, we’ll try again and register him for the next age level. Hopefully by that time the craft time will be more age-appropriate for him.  Perhaps it’s time to seek out a playgroup and do our own circle time with songs and stories, and have each of the parents take turns providing some sort of structured activity.

But once again, the social aspect of the class is very valuable.  And if you have a particularly advanced child, perhaps the crafts time will be just right for him/her as a challenge.  But given the past three weeks, I’m just not yet sold on the Tiny Tots class.  If my opinion changes in the near future, I’ll be sure to add an update.