The same song can sound completely different when performed by two different singers or played by two different instruments. If the key is the same, the tempo is the same, and the articulation is the same, what is it that accounts for these differences? The answer is timbre, which refers to the character of a sound-the unique colour or tone of a singer’s voice, or the sound quality of a particular instrument. In this lesson, the Tiny Tigers explored a variety of timbres in activities that built their capacity for musical appreciation and expression. They identified and discriminated sounds, articulated personal sound preferences, and created specific sounds to express themselves musically.

The Tiny Tigers children painted recycled egg carton pieces during one of their visual arts lessons. Painting recycled egg carton pieces with tempera paint is a beneficial and engaging activity for two-year-old children as it allows them to explore their creativity and encourages their fine motor skills development. Dipping brushes in the paint and applying them onto the textured surfaces of the cartons enhances their hand-and-eye coordination and dexterity. The painted egg carton pieces will form chimes and will be a colourful part of our decoration for the End of Year Celebration.

The Tiny Tigers are growing familiar with the world around them. They are learning about weather circumstances and how the day changes into the night—learning about nighttime and daytime works as a precursor to introducing children to calendars and other methods of tracking time. The Sun lights up the day and the moon reflects the Sun at night. The Tiny Tigers even prepared an artwork to showcase their knowledge on the newly learnt topic. They have experienced the colours of nature while playing with sensory bags. However, one of the most important pieces of knowledge that they acquired was related to water. The Tigers have learnt where water comes from, where they can find it, how they can use it effectively to avoid wasting it, and why water is essential for our health. They participated in Environmental Day and performed two lovely songs for the parents.

In this activity, the Tiny Tigers are required to actively listen to the beats on the drum to determine a movement response. When you ask children to move in response to a musical cue, you help them to coordinate what they hear with how they move. They also learn to control their movements by connecting their own movements to what they are hearing. They demonstrate they understand the difference between a walking beat and a running beat by changing their movements when the beat changes.

The Tiny Tigers children made beautiful lilac bushes during one of their visual arts lessons. They squeezed glue out of the tubes with their little but strong palms, selected and glued pink and purple silk paper pieces, crumbled and ripped them according to their likes, and decorated the lilac stem lines with them according to their preferences.

The big day has arrived. The Tiny Tigers were overjoyed to be able to present their performance to their mummies on Mother’s Day. They have been diligently preparing for this important event. While practising the dances and singing the songs, they often asked for a break to share their emotions and thoughts on why they liked their mommy. These statements were amazingly adorable. They shared their minds explaining about mummy’s delicious cooking, and warm hugs and kisses. They also thought that it is essential to express their feelings with a small gift and card, too. They have prepared wonderful bouquets in a vase out of felt material and also a Mother’s Day card out of the flowers they collected in Happy Kids’ big garden. At the end of the day, after the performance finished, they were still humming the songs happily, thinking about their mommies.

The Tiny Tigers have amazing news to share! They had the opportunity of going on their first-ever field trip. They visited Tropicarium in Budapest and “dived into” the magical world of the sea. Previously, they familiarised themselves with the sea animals during circle time and they were over the moon to actually see those animals in real life. In the beginning, some of them kept their distance from the fish tank because they did not know what to expect from the animals living there. After some explanation from their teachers, they gained an understanding of the events and were confidently walking down the corridors while holding onto their peer’s hands. Their favourite monument of the day was, of course, the shark tunnel where they could witness sharks swimming above their heads. They sang the “Baby Shark” song to them joyfully while waving at them. When they arrived back at Happy Kids, everyone was tired but the Tigers said they could go and visit Tropicarium over and over again.

Gross motor skills engage the large muscles (the arms, legs, and torso) and govern one’s general mobility (walking, running, and jumping). These skills impact a child’s capacity to engage in sports activities (throwing, lifting, catching, kicking), tend to self-care needs (dressing, hygiene), and endure any physical activity for a reasonable length of time. In this lesson, the Tiny Tigers worked to strengthen their gross motor control by creatively experimenting with different movements through play. In the process, they also work on the associated skills of balance and coordination, strength and endurance, focused attention, and body and spatial awareness.

The Tiny Tigers children made cute dandelion blowballs during one of their visual arts lessons. They observed dandelion pictures and learned about their colour, parts, and life cycle. They happily printed the dandelion seeds colourful with their fingers. The children happily used their fingers and hands and mixed the offered colours bravely according to their likes.

Rolling is a locomotor movement that comes from the torso rather than the legs or arms. It is unique in the way it allows the Tiny Tigers to experience the sensation of seeing the world from the stomach and back, all in one continuous motion. Rolling also stimulates the vestibular system, which helps enhance the Tiny Tigers’ sense of balance and orientation in space. We know all this from the developmental experts, but the real experts (children) think the rolling in ‘Walk Along, Rover’ is just plain fun!

The Tiny Tigers children made some Easter-related artwork during their visual arts lessons. First, they observed some Easter-related pictures. Then, they looked at various Easter egg designs and identified their main features. At last, the children made colourful scrape-painted Easter eggs. They used lollipop sticks to scoop bright tempera paint on the egg samples, then, they used recycled carton box pieces and scraped the paint with them skillfully.

The Tigers have been diligently preparing for Easter. They practised two songs called “The Easter Bunny Hop” and “Bunny Party” for the assembly. They were having lots of fun while performing for their parents. They listened to the story of “Daisy, the Forgetful Bunny” and secretly prepared their Easter Bunny gift and Easter Chick cards for the parents. For the Tigers, the most exciting part was going on an egg hunt. They made their unique Easter Baskets and roamed around the garden to find Easter eggs that were hidden by the Easter Bunny. Additionally, they took part in the Easter Party activities and shared lots of laughter with their peers.

Say cheese and strike a pose. It is Charity Fashion Show time. Happy Kids International Kindergarten and Nursery has again opened its doors for the annual Charity Fashion Show. The Tiny Tigers have been eager to show off their wonderful costumes prepared for this special occasion. They introduced the theme of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. At first, they were a bit shy when they saw the small crowd of the audience joyfully cheering for them. However, after taking their first steps on the runway, they totally transformed into their characters. They also had the privilege of meeting and patting Füge, the amazing rescue dog. They listened to some stories about Füge and watched her doing some tricks. The Tigers were a bit disappointed when Füge had to leave but they were happy to have the opportunity of meeting her. They said goodbye with big smiles while waving at her.

Children need at least 60 minutes of active physical play a day. Activities like this one, which invites the Tiny Tigers to get up and move like a rabbit or any other animal they dream up, help build strong, healthy muscles and bones. On a rainy day, put on some music, and turn your family room or play area into a forest or savannah where everyone can move and dance like their favourite animals.

The Tiny Tigers children made scrape-painted Easter bunnies during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they scooped some pastel yellow, pink, green, and orange paint on their bunny samples. Then, they used small carton box pieces and scraped the paint to the best of their knowledge. They also painted and designed some background paper for our Charity Art Exhibition. For that project, they used vivid green and yellow tempera colours.

In ‘Walk and Stop’, the Tiny Tigers experience tempo changes through sound, movement, and even sight, when they see others move. One of the benefits of playing with tempo is preparing our ears to listen for the variety of tempi that naturally occur in speech.

The Tiny Tigers children kept working on their impressive art pieces for our upcoming Charity Art Exhibition Event. After painting blue skies and creating butterfly wings with the symmetry painting technique, the children glued the parts together. They squeezed the liquid glue out of their tubes and glued abdomens and thoraxes with pompoms, heads with recycled bottle lids, drew smiling faces with red markers, glued wiggly eyes, and added antennas with pipe cleaners.

The Tiny Tigers had a blast during the Carnival festivities. They had the opportunity to choose from a variety of stations that they could access with their special Carnival Tickets. They enjoyed prancing around in their costumes and happily showed them off to their classmates. The Tigers enjoyed a puppet show of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ and ate their carnival doughnuts and popcorn, too. After the festivities came to an end, the Tigers started to learn about life cycles. Firstly, they listened to a story about the transformation and growth of plants, ‘From Seed to Plant’ and even did an experiment with food colouring to see if their chrysanthemums would change colour. To refresh their bulletin board, they prepared a wonderful flower artwork that is now showcased on our Spring Board to cheerfully welcome the good weather. We wish you a wonderful Spring season.

The Tiny Tigers children started to prepare their impressive art pieces for our upcoming art exhibition. They made colourful butterflies with the symmetry painting technique. First, they spooned tempera paint on the paper with lollipop sticks. Then, they folded the paper in halves and spread the paint with their tiny hands. At last, they revealed the magical art pieces and smiled at them with great satisfaction.

The Tiny Tigers had busy two weeks. They have been preparing for Valentine’s Day; practising their songs for the assembly, secretly making gifts for their mommies and daddies and improving their fine motor skills with some tracing. They have also learnt a new Jolly Phonics sound /ai/ and made a rain artwork connected to it. They had some happy days when the weather turned a bit colder and snow covered the whole garden. They built snowmen and made snow angels together as a way of class bonding. Additionally, they visited the Rolli Polli gym and passed the exciting obstacle course set up by professional trainers. Also, they have familiarised themselves with the parachute game which is beneficial when it comes to learning about teamwork.

One of the fundamental aspects of music is tempo. We learn to move quickly when we are in a hurry or excited and slowly when we need to be careful or want to extend something we enjoy. The Tiny Tigers enjoy fast and slow music equally as they prefer one tempo to another. Experiencing a variety of tempi (and learning to distinguish among them) helps with many aspects of Tiny Tigers’ life, including language, reading, music, and sports.

The Tiny Tigers have been very active since their last blog post. They have been practising for their upcoming Valentine’s Day performance and have been preparing their secret gifts for mommy and daddy. Additionally, they have been concentrating on improving their fine motor skills with lacing, beading, playdough time, painting and colouring. Fine motor skills help children perform important tasks such as feeding themselves, grasping objects and writing. The ability to accomplish self-care and everyday tasks by using fine motor skills helps a child’s self-esteem and confidence grow. From next week, they will start their cutting notebooks to support the development of their fine motor skills even further. During gym class, they experienced the “senses path”. This sensory walk is a fun or colourful pathway that is used for children to explore new or different sensory experiences. Sensory paths can be used to support children with sensory processing issues or to help children to develop motor skills, balance, hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness. On top of these activities, they had the fantastic privilege of riding the ponies at Happy Kids. They had a blast! The Tiny Tigers are looking forward to sharing their fun-filled experiences with you in the future too. Stay tuned!

Making music is a social experience and we have a lively time playing our instruments together. We get to share ideas, smiles, and the steady pulse of the music. Positive social interactions like this help the Tiny Tigers feel good about themselves and give them the confidence to interact with others with equanimity and integrity.

The Tiny Tigers children painted on see-through vertical surfaces during one of their art lessons. The children loved experimenting in various ways, such as mixing colours, peeking at other children from unpainted parts, and painting slowly or lively. The children enjoyed this great amount of freedom in the creative process.

Peekaboo is a classic favourite that is good for more than a smile and a laugh. Hiding and finding you over and over again helps to illustrate object permanence. This concept helps the Tiny Tigers learn that you are there for them even when they cannot see you. That is the kind of reassurance they need to foster their emerging independence.

The Tiny Tigers children extended their knowledge and understanding of the winter season during one of their visual arts lessons. They learned a lot about winter weather and observed some pictures of winter landscapes and winter trees with their art teacher. They made winter tree artwork using white paint and cotton buds and painted snow and snowflakes on the ground, on the tree branches, and in the air too.

The Tiny Tigers started out in 2023 with a blast. They told stories about their winter holiday and explained what Santa Claus brought them for Christmas. Unfortunately, there was no snow when they returned to Happy Kids. However, their teachers made sure to prepare a special winter sensory bin with fake snow, from which they could make any tasty ice cream or meal they imagined to serve for their classmates. They also had fun surrounding their huge “Transportation” sensory bin which was filled with rice, glitter, sequins, marbles, pebbles and plastic vehicles. The Tiny Tigers have been discovering the world of transportation. They have been expanding their vocabulary related to this topic and learnt about traffic lights too. Red means “STOP”, yellow means “WAIT/SLOW DOWN” and green means “GO”. The Tigers have been practising this during gym time and also spent a joyful creative art time painting their own traffic lights. Beep, beep, be careful on the streets.

The Tiny Tigers children kept working on the cardboard Christmas tree project. They kept sticking cardboard paper stripes on the samples, painting them with green paint, and decorating them with pompoms and buttons according to their preferences. They also made Christmas stockings and designed them in various ways according to their likes.

Silliness can be your greatest ally in the day-to-day, hour-to-hour challenges of parenting. Humour can help you turn even the biggest power struggles into moments of joyful connection. A little silly fun is a great motivator that can encourage the behaviour you want to see.

The Tiny Tigers enjoy it so much when you join them in their silliness. So even if your inner jigging piggy is not comfortable making an appearance here in class, give it a try at home and show your child how delightful and freeing it can be to move your body in super silly ways. You will both get some good laughs and some good exercise, too.

The Tiny Tigers have been diligently preparing for the Christmas festivities. Santa Claus visited them because all of them were very nice this year. They received some chocolate, candies and the classroom toys they were asking for in a letter that had been sent to the white beard man. The Tiny Tigers made wonderful Christmas presents for their mommies and daddies and presented these after their Christmas performances. When the big day of the performance came, some of them were a bit shy but then cheerfully joined in with the others and enjoyed every second of their songs. First, they sang about their first snow experience when they caught “Little Snowflakes”. Then they sent their letters to the old man because they knew that “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. To make sure their wishes come true, they sang “Jingle Bells” to close their play. In the end, the Tigers shared their present with their parents and danced to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” to evoke the Christmas spirit and atmosphere. We wish you a Merry Christmas filled with lovely and memorable moments and a Happy New Year full of luck and happiness. See you next year!

Our lovely Tigers had an eventful few weeks with plenty of exciting activities. They had the perfect opportunity to prove their bravery by riding the ponies. They learnt the ponies’ names and tried to recognise them by their colours. Furthermore, the Tigers proved once again how amazing their gross motor skills are and roamed around the Rolli Polli gym joyfully and motivated to show off the special moves they have learnt from the coaches previously. Additionally, the Tiny Tigers started to familiarise themselves with quality teamwork; working together on puzzles, participating in threading activities and patiently waiting for the others, taking turns. However, there had been an even more magnificent event that happened at Happy Kids. The Tiny Tigers have experienced the first snow of the year. They ran in the garden excitedly chasing and trying to catch snowflakes. Some of them were quite successful at this. We discussed what snow actually is and in what weather we can experience this phenomenon. Some of them even said that if snow arrives, Santa Claus is nearby. Therefore, the Tiny Tigers promise to be good and are eager to meet the white-bearded Santa Claus.

The Tiny Tigers enjoy it so much when you join them in their silliness. So even if your inner jigging piggy is not comfortable making an appearance here in class, give it a try at home and show your child how delightful and freeing it can be to move your body in super silly ways. You will both get some good laughs and some good exercise, too.

The Tiny Tigers children made amazing cardboard Christmas trees during their visual arts lessons. First, they observed some pictures of Christmas trees and identified their main physical characteristics with the art teacher. Then, they glued vertically, horizontally, and diagonally cardboard paper stripes on the samples and painted them with light and dark green tempera paint. At last, they decorated them with buttons and pompoms and placed giant silver or gold tree toppers on the top of the Christmas trees.

The Tiny Tigers entered a new month: November. They diligently repeat the current month’s name and know that it is still autumn. They have noticed that the weather became colder and remind each other to wear warm clothes. They have been preparing for Thanksgiving and reading books about how to be thankful and kind. In order to prove their knowledge, they volunteered to collect the fallen leaves into plastic bags. They were very enthusiastic about this activity and proudly gave high fives to each other when they finished. They celebrated Diwali and World Kindness Day and prepared wonderful artwork which decorated our bulletin board. They also made a Kindness Magic Wand to cast a “Be Kind” spell on the world. Abracadabra!

Pretend play strengthens learning by involving many areas of development at the same time: physical, social, emotional, math, music, language and literacy. Through pretending to play with others the Tiny Tigers include creating mental images. Their literacy skills are developing, too, as they begin to use symbolic thinking and language to organise simple actions into more complicated sequences and pretend situations. This lesson highlights pretend play activities that engage many parts of the Tiny Tigers’ brains at the same time, offering opportunities for your child to learn and practice both concrete and abstract thinking skills.

Can you imagine having anything more delicious than eating pumpkin pie in the autumn season? The Tiny Tigers children mixed orange paint as pumpkin puree, flour and sugar as liquid glue and painted their pie base with it. Then, they put their pies in the oven and let their pies form their crusts with brown paper pieces. At last, they put silver glitter as powdered sugar, gold glitter as cinnamon, and cotton pads as cream on the top of their pies. The Tiny Tigers children cannot wait to taste yummy pumpkin pies for real.

The Tiny Tigers are still mesmerised by the beauty of autumn. They are enthusiastic about collecting leaves and chestnuts. They have been learning about how to become a good friend and how to invite others into their games. The Tiny Tigers enjoy playing together while holding each other’s hands and roaming around the big garden. They have learnt new Jolly Phonics sounds including /m/ and they prepared a wonderful moon painting by using sponges. They have been preparing for Halloween excitedly and made marvellous ghosts to decorate our bulletin board. They participated in the Happy Kids Halloween Party and wore fabulous costumes to celebrate this event. They learnt about “Trick or Treat” and enjoyed a variety of Halloween games too.

In this lesson, the Tiny Tigers could imitate different sounds with zig-zag blocks. It also introduced the important relationship between sounds and symbols. In many activities, the class heard sounds (from the audio or from their bodies, voices, or instruments) and also saw symbols that represented those sounds. The symbols showed the duration, quality, quantity, pacing, pattern, and intensity of the sounds. Decoding and interpreting symbols are pre-reading skills that are necessary for the areas of language (letters, words, sentences), math (numbers, shapes, patterns), and music (music notation).

The Tiny Tigers children made some cute Halloween-themed arts and crafts during their visual art lessons. One time, they made cauldrons and learned to work with the symmetry painting technique. They enjoyed seeing the changes they made each time adding more paint to their paper and using glitter bottles.

Touching, listening to, and talking about musical instruments open up a new world for the Tiny Tigers. They are using multiple senses to discover, imagine, and invent possibilities for the instrument They are exploring. Talking with the Tiny Tigers about their experience supports their learning.

The Tiny Tigers children have been learning about the autumn season recently. During one of their visual arts lessons, they have been focusing on autumn trees. First, we observed some pictures of autumn trees and leaves and identified their main physical features with the children. Then, they printed autumn leaves using wine corks on their tree samples and made beautiful autumn trees.

The Tiny Tigers explored the wonderful world of autumn. We talked about the season’s colours and discovered the treasures of the big garden. We found some lovely leaves and chestnuts. The Tiny Tigers “baked” chestnut pies in the sandpit with their friends and made all the teachers try their specialities. After “eating”, it was time to move a bit, so they decided to chase each other and throw autumn leaves in the air. They loved this activity and joyfully giggled while trying to catch the leaves that were gracefully falling down. The Tiny Tigers also participated in the Harvest Assembly this week and had another special event: Rolli Polli. This was their first time visiting the new gym and they were fascinated by the new equipment. They were excited to show off their gross motor skills to the coaches and happily received their Rolli Polli stickers after their session.

The Tiny Tigers had a lovely week. They had the privilege of having the ponies at Happy Kids. Some of our Tigers were very brave and tried riding the ponies, whereas some preferred observing them from a distance. They have learnt two new Jolly Phonics sounds, /p/ and /n/ and were busy making a peacock and a nest artwork. These were also connected to our ongoing topic „Home”. This week, we talked about the natural habitat of animals and tried to guess which animal belongs to which living circumstances. Additionally, the Tiny Tigers have participated in several gym sessions in which they learnt about the words „stop” and „go” and had dancing sessions to practice tempo with the „Party Freeze Song”. They played with yoga balls to improve their gross motor skills. For enhancing their fine motor skills, the Tiny Tigers played with a colourful parachute in the gym. They had so much fun, the gym was echoing with their giggles and waves of laughter.

An instrument play-along provides many opportunities to practice social skills for our Tiny Tigers. We ask the Tiny Tigers to get an instrument for themselves, they interact with their friends as they play, and at the end, they work with the group to put the instruments away and get ready for the next activity. These are all big steps in the development of cooperation, relationship, and empathy.

The Tiny Tigers children had their very first art lesson with our art specialist in the art atelier. First, they observed different types of autumn leaves and identified some interesting features about them with the help of the teacher. After the discussion, the children used tempera paint and brushes and painted beautiful autumn leaves with autumn colours.

The Tiny Tigers are happy to start out a 2022/2023 school year at Happy Kids International Kindergarten and Nursery. They had an excellent opportunity to discover the renovated playground with the new equipment. Climbing, jumping, running or doing yoga? Not a challenge for them! Moving around and improving their gross motor skills is one of the activities they love the most. However, there is also time for the improvement of their fine motor skills by completing tracing sheets, stamping with apples or gluing into their Jolly Phonics notebook. They have already learnt two new sounds; /s/ and /a/ and they are excited to learn even more. The Tiny Tigers also celebrated International Charity Day and International Literacy Day this week. We explored the land of animal stories together and we also learnt how to be gentle and kind towards each other