Bumblebees
To qualify, children must be at least 18 months and no older than 2½ by July 31st for a Fall start of classes. Bumblebees meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 -11:30 am and tuition for the 2025-2026 school year is $194/month.
What do bumblebees learn?
The Bumblebees are just beginning to explore their worlds. Through creative play, exposure to music, art and new experiences they quickly learn about their environment and how to interact with other children and adults. Our Bumblebees class emphasizes unstructured play -- giving children the room they need to engage in activities that interest and stimulate them and learn at their own pace. Our teachers and parents help guide them as they explore and learn.
Example Daily Class Schedule
Kids ARrIVE!
Wash hands
Teacher greets the children and parents/caregivers as they get signed in
Teacher and working parents help the children with the transition into class
Children greet each other and start to play
Parents who are leaving, leave by 9:45
Please note: (if your child is not ready, you are welcome to stay for the remainder of the day even if it is not your work day. We welcome the extra set of hands! If you do decide to leave it’s best to do this in a timely manner (by 9:45-ish) as prolonged transitions evoke anxiety in many children. The teacher will be available to help you design a transition plan that feels good to both you and your child)
Classroom Play Time
EXAMPLE Activities:
gross motor play- gross motor play- push toys, climbing the loft, bouncing, rocking toys, outside slide, gymnastics mats for practicing tumbling, tunnels for crawling throughmbling, tunnels for crawling through
art project—various stations set up for painting and crafts
sensory table—this allows for tactile exploration as well as room for experimenting with basic scientific principles (sink/float, pouring/filling, cause & effect, laws of physics, etc.)
playdough—another tactile experience that starts to work not only their imagination, but also their growing fine motor muscles
dramatic play—kitchen & props, dress-up capes, building houses or boats out of blocks, pretending to be animals, the list goes on…
blocks & building—a toddler feels quite powerful lifting and moving the big hollow blocks we have in our classroom. Their imagination is stretched when we add props to the blocks, placing animals inside block shelters, driving cars into the driveways we just built. We will hear the frequent “timber!” as the “builder” turns “condemner” and watches delightedly as his/her work of art crashes to the floor. After all, the experiment with cause and effect is far more important to the toddler’s development than is the final building product!
Reading books—Oftentimes a child needs the comfort of a lap and a book and there are always parents or a teacher available to read in the rocker or on the couch.
Manipulative Toys—There will be an ample supply of cause and effect toys, in and out toys, building toys, and rolling toys available to explore.
Clean up
Children help the working adults tidy the classroom.
Circle
Music, movement and stories.
Outside time at Lakewood playground
LCP has access to two enclosed outdoor play spaces with a sandbox, diggers, balance and building toys, garden tools, and plenty of room to move. At the teacher’s discretion, classes may also cross the street to play at Lakewood Playground with swings, sandbox, play structure and playfield.
Goodbye Circle (quick song)
Teacher is available to talk to parents as they come pick up their child.
PICK UP
Teacher or working adults releases students and make sure they get signed out. Teachers will available to talk to parents and caregivers.
From Ali Smith
Bumblebees Teacher
Before I had children I taught lower elementary in Los Angeles, NYC and locally for nine years, in a variety of school-settings. I really loved being a kindergarten teacher. I believe in the unique capabilities of all children to learn through exploring their environments and social interactions, and prioritized setting up the classroom and day to allow my students opportunities to immerse themselves in play. Once my younger child was 3 I returned to teaching part-time, and continue to work as an assistant teacher at PlayGarden. I love connecting my students with nature, reading to them, and doing art with them. I also just find young children delightful! They are cute and hilarious and engaging and it is a pleasure to spend working hours with them.
“I love connecting my students with nature, reading to them, and doing art with them.”
We began at LCP in 2013, when our son was a young bumblebee. Our daughter was an LCP baby her whole life, even having the prestigious role of "dragonfly baby" during our son’s dragonfly-leader year. This community has been such an important foundation for our family. Even as someone with a masters in education, the parent education and building of shared values with teachers, parent educators and fellow parents were essential to our development as parents. Our LCP people are our closest friends, the people we turn to for support and celebration. Building bonds with other people's children, and watching your children be loved by other adults is so powerful--a piece of that village mentality, maybe, in the modern age. I feel so honored to return to LCP as the bumblebee teacher to continue to grow alongside and learn from this dynamic, passionate, and delightful community.
Teaching Philosophy
I was homeschooled from kindergarten through middle school, spending my days with plenty of time to be alone and pensive at home or out and about with various groups and friends. Who I am and what I have done professionally all began with these foundational experiences of an education that was constructivist, individualized for my needs and interests, and based in my community. I became a reflective, eager, independent learner, with no real differentiation between “life” and “learning.” Everything was play as well as a learning experience, and I loved it. I love working with young children because the research is clear: the work of children is to play. I love working with our other preschool teachers to reflect on the play we see happening, and brainstorming ways to follow that play and offer new ways to deepen and expand upon it. Honestly the hardest part is always wanting to offer more play opportunities than our days allow us!
Equally important to me is working with our parent educators and families to learn about, reflect upon and foster growth in our children’s social and emotional experiences. My years as a kindergarten teacher taught me how essential this learning is for happy, thriving children, and our time as a co-op family further emphasized this necessity. Our bumblebees and their families are often just emerging from that simultaneously sleepy and frenzied first 1-2 years and are ready to practice independence and friendship skills. As our bees buzz around the classroom we work hard to recognize what they need and want, and help them develop language for their world through fun songs and books and so much modeling. I love being there for this stage of rapid development–from toddlers who may have never stayed with someone outside their family, to confident students who feel ownership and belonging in the classroom and begin to use language to communicate their needs and ideas.