Counting to 100 is something students at the Soboba Tribal Preschool are working on but it was a number they celebrated on Jan. 30 as it signaled the school year’s halfway mark. With activities that ranged from making hats to wear that deemed them “100 Days Smarter” and “100 Days Brighter” the kindergarten, pre-kindergarten and children in the “twos” and “threes” classrooms spent the day working with the big number.

Many of the children came dressed for the day, either as a 100-year-old person with gray frosted hair or wearing something that showed 100. A pre-k student had a t-shirt with 100 plastic googly eyes glued onto it, another had 100 colorful pom poms attached to their shirt.

Amanda Vallin’s three-year-olds spent part of their morning counting out 10 different snacks into groups of ten. They used pretzels, Goldfish crackers, Cheerios, raisins, popcorn and more to complete their 100th Day Trail Mix sheet. Their snack items were then transferred to a plastic bag for them to take home and eat later. They also enjoyed a 100-day story that incorporated a special dance so they could get some of their fitness time in as well.

Vallin said the biggest difference with the kids at the start of the school year in August until now has been the development of their fine motor skills. She said that is the most important thing they focus on in her classroom each day. The students do puzzles and trace their names with a pencil. She said a lot of the students had not been in school before so there was much to learn about rules and socialization, too.

Ana Garcia is teaching the pre-kindergarten class this year. She taught the three-year-olds last year so many of her former students are in her class again and she has noticed how much they’ve grown. She was working at a table with four students who were assembling paper gumball machines. The top of the “machine” was made from a paper plate with 100 circles on it. The children could color them any way they wished before gluing them to the base of the machine where they wrote their name.

Garcia said the class is reading short stories and memorizing sight words. She said the majority seem ready for kindergarten even though they have another 100 days of school left. “I couldn’t be happier with the progression,” she said. “Some kids got really creative with the theme this year, with help from their parents. It is so good to see this level of parent participation.”

Sierra Vivanco’s kindergarten students strung 100 colorful cereal loops onto yarn to form a necklace. They also were counting to 100 and working in an activity book that included drawing a picture of themselves at 100 years of age, completing sentences that began with such prompts as “I wish I had 100…” and “If I had $100, I would buy…” and practicing writing out the words “one hundred.”

Vivanco said many of the students have been able to pick up on their letter sounds, which is the skill that was hardest to recoup after the pandemic forced children into virtual learning. She said compared to last year when she taught the first post-COVID kindergartners in person, this has been a faster paced first 100 days. She said there are still some challenges with attendance and social skills, but they are working through all that and she feels by the end of the school year, the students will all be where they need to be to head off to first grade.

“By graduation, they need to have mastered letters and their sounds, numbers, sight words and other things that most are doing pretty well at so far,” Vivanco said. “Parents are really grasping what effect the time away from school during COVID has had on their children but are hopeful they will be able to get back on track this year.”

She said her class has begun learning how to count by twos and they had lots of questions. “They are also very curious at this age,” she said.

Staff from Soboba Tribal Preschool will be hosting a Bingo fundraising event on Feb. 22 so each student along with an adult can take an end-of-the-year trip to Disneyland. A Bingo card and spaghetti dinner will be provided with the purchase of each $10 ticket. Additional Bingo cards will be available for purchase. Please note that all attendees will have to show identification at the Access Gate before making their way to the Soboba Sports Complex. Doors will open at 5 p.m.

For tickets or more information, please call 951-487-8732.

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Preschool Director Dianne King said the children always enjoy making crafts and necklaces to wear for the event. This year, things had to be done a bit differently.

“During a normal school year, we explain how these activities were used by their ancestors, such as pottery-making, beading, cooking and other Native traditions,” King said. “With our distance learning program, we sent the crafts home for the students with their weekly homework packets. This opens up an opportunity for each parent or grandparent to share their knowledge of Native history with their child in addition to the instruction from the teacher. It should be a great talking point for the whole family!”

The “Twos” classroom activities were created by teachers Anita Gutierrez and Lenora Mojado. One was the Little Bugs beading necklaces where the child takes a bead and puts it on a string which helps with fine motor skills to strengthen the small muscles in their little hands. Another one was making a small clay pot.

“One activity was making a drum, although the Luiseño Indians did not use drums but rather gourds/rattles,” Gutierrez said. “But this was a good way for children to hear the drum make some noise and talk about other Natives that use the drum for healing.”

Lastly, the children made dream catchers from paper plates and string, with beads attached. The parent-guided activity asked the child to lace the paper plate and add beads in the shape of a star to “catch bad dreams while someone sleeps” when it is hung near their bed.

“We could not get into much detail of their Luiseño Native traditions like making baskets or picking out a gourd and making a rattle, but we did simple projects for the two-year-olds to make and learn about other Native cultures and traditions,” Gutierrez said. “As a teacher at the preschool for five years, the curriculum was developed throughout previous years. I was always in charge of the pottery clay and Ms. Lenora, my co-teacher, was a part of the necklace beading. She has been at the preschool for two years and is a Tribal Member from the Soboba (Band of Luiseño Indians).”

Both teachers agree that it is great to be able to teach their students about different cultures while learning more about their own.

“Culture is a big part of the Soboba Tribe and it is a big part of me now that I’ve been here so long,” Gutierrez said. “And I enjoy working alongside a Tribal Member who is so passionate about her culture.”

For the three-year-old preschoolers, teachers Ana Garcia and Melissa Arviso sent home materials for children to do the following: create their own dream catcher, make small pots with modeling clay and complete a sand art project.

“As teachers, we had to get creative and come up with age-appropriate curriculum,” Garcia said. “Normally, we would concentrate on California Natives, but this year Ms. Melissa got creative and involved Tribal customs from around the entire country.”

Pre-kindergarten students got to make a dream catcher by coloring and lacing a mini-paper plate and adding feathers to the bottom of it. Teachers Amanda Vallin and Denise Acedo also provided modeling clay for the children to make their own pots and three coloring pages with Luiseño words of an eagle (a$wut), turtle (paa’ila) and bear (hunwut).

“We have two Native stories we read and uploaded to a video for the children to watch,” Vallin said. “We are trying to work on teaching the children more of their Luiseño language this year by including it in their learning of basic words based on the classroom’s weekly theme, colors, shapes and numbers. We also try to incorporate Native American music and dancing.”

Kindergarten teacher Cindy Lee said the online teaching format led her and Instructional Aide Antonia Venegas to rethink all the activities they would normally offer at this time.

“Usually we do crafts, stories and games,” she said. “This year, we did three crafts, one game and Ms. Antonia’s sons came in to rattle for bird singing. The three crafts were a clay pinch pot, dream catcher and a woven round basket. We picked activities that represented several Native American Tribes or were common among them.”

Lee said dream catchers have different origins and she shared one during class time that was from the Lakota Tribe. She said clay was used to make pottery by many tribes but mostly woodland Native Americans. It is also a natural resource that Natives could easily find and use. She said the children used paper to make their baskets as weaving baskets is a long-held tradition among the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians.

“Our game was based on a common hand game (like Peon) and we simplified it by dividing the class into two groups (Ms. Cindy and Ms. Antonia groups),” Lee said. “We then used four circular pieces of wood with a happy or sad face drawn on each one. I went first and the other team had to guess what hand the happy face was in. If they guessed right, they won a stick. Ms. Antonia hid her happy/sad face and my team guessed and would earn a stick for a correct guess. The first team to win 10 sticks won the game. It was a bit challenging but fun to do online.”

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