Sweet Sparrows Daycare

02/09/2026

12/03/2025

We have done this tradition since my teens were toddlers. It is a great way to spend Christmas Eve.

Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt for Kids 🎄✨

10/20/2025

Advice to feed babies peanuts early and often helped thousands of kids avoid allergies!

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/advice-to-feed-babies-peanuts-early-and-often-helped-thousands-of-kids-avoid-allergies

09/05/2025

This image comes from an MRI study of preschoolers (Hutton et al., JAMA Pediatrics, 2020). It shows how screen use is linked to the wiring of the developing brain.

The top row (blue) highlights where more screen time is tied to weaker white matter organization. White matter is the brain’s wiring system that connects regions so they can work efficiently.

The bottom row (red) shows where heavier screen use is linked to weaker insulation on those connections. Insulation, or myelin, helps brain signals travel quickly, like the protective coating on an electrical wire.

Why does this matter? These highlighted areas include pathways for language, early literacy, and self-regulation. Children with higher screen scores also performed lower on language and literacy tests.

This is not a before and after of one child. It is a group-level finding. The message is clear. In the early years the brain is wiring for life. The more time children spend with people, play, movement, and books, the stronger these foundational circuits become.

08/17/2025

08/10/2025

07/25/2025

We've got room on our couch for you! This spot won’t stay empty for long… But right now, it’s waiting for your child and family. 💛

🎨 Immediate play therapy openings in Sioux Falls
🧸 A safe space to explore big feelings through play
👨‍👩‍👧 Parent-focused support woven into every step
💙 Trauma-informed, relationship-centered providers
🌱 Gentle, developmentally appropriate interventions

✨ Ready to take the next step?
Fill out our quick form and we’ll be in touch soon:
🔗 https://forms.wix.com/r/7354212861947674850

06/27/2025

06/25/2025

05/16/2025

Yes!!! Say it louder for the administrators out front.

Sadly...far too many early childhood programs have eliminated TRUE PLAY (aka: play that IS COMPLETELY driven and owned by the player)from their schedule and replaced it with way too much teacher directed time.

WHY?

Kindergarten Readiness

The absolutely non-developmentally appropriate push(SHOVE) down of meaningless academics onto children younger and younger has to stop!!!

ABC's and 123's (which, arguably a young child has NO USE OR NEED FOR) are replacing VITAL life skills like:

•Independent thinking
Independent thinkers are viewed as "a behavior problem". They are often viewed as children who don't listen.

•Perseverance
Due to rigid schedules(full of organized Kindergarten readiness activities), children are not given the time or the opportunity to persevere. Perseverance requires the opportunity to struggle. All too often:
1. Adults overly control children, eliminating any opportunity for a child to fail or struggle
2. When a child does struggle, adults fear that the struggle will lead to challenging behaviors so they rush in and solve the struggle
3. Children are not given the freedom nor time to have their own ideas. There are so many opportunities to persevere when you get to test your own ideas. Ideas take time. Fixing an idea that failed takes time AND perseverance. Accepting that an idea is won't work fosters another life skill: resilience.

•Critical Thinking:
Critical thinking requires curiosity, the need to know, the need to apply knowledge and see what happens, the need to form a thought or make a decision. This skill is developed through all the organic trials and errors of play. It is developed through the right to explore your own interests and ideas. It is formed through the freedom of applying one's own ideas to open-ended materials.
It is not formed when we are told what to do and how to do it.
It is fostered when children have ample time to attach their ideas to a room full of open-ended opportunities (not just one basket of loose parts, but an entire environment that is all considered "loose parts")

What is the very best way for children to develop not only this very small list of life skills, but SOOO many more?

By gifting them with AMPLE time to LEAD THEIR OWN PLAY.

What does "AMPLE TIME" mean? At LEAST five hours of a child's day SHOULD be led by THEIR PLAY.

NOTE: This is a very small list of the VITALLY important life skills that children are NOT developing when our goals are too focused on Kindergarten Readiness.

Please do not let Kindergarten Readiness block the bigger, much more important goal of preparing children for LIFE

05/15/2025

05/14/2025

Take note! So many freebies for those young readers this summer 📚

Via