A shared network of boutique preschool mini-pods
Little Lions, Tiny Tigers, Bitty Bears & Friendly Foxes
Roots & Branches
About the founder of Nurture Pods, mini-pod classrooms
Mom, CAPPA Postpartum Doula, Certified Newborn Care Expert, Nutritionist, Nanny, Certified International Kid's Yoga Instructor, Parent Coach & Classroom Teacher.​
As a hands-on mom of 4 children (ages 1 year up to 22 years!) I've had the unique privilege of gaining my experience over the past 2+ decades with my daughters along as playmates, while building a community of client families in the Central Park neighborhood in Denver, Colorado.
​I've taught in a variety of settings from large group daycare to a private nanny, nanny-share host, small in-home provider and since the pandemic, we grew into a multi-location micro-pod/nanny-share ratio preschool program, led by myself and my incredible, talented team of qualified partner teachers! We all bring our passions, skills and experiences together to create the best of all childcare worlds. Our dream program offers all the comforts of home with the quality, stability, safety and professionalism of well-appointed, top-notch classrooms. ​​
My degree major is in Nutrition Communications and favorite pastimes include culinary art, outdoor activities, interior design and holistic wellness practice. I'm passionate about nurturing children while they explore a safe, loving environment and creating fun, comforting and inviting spaces for them to enjoy. The Nurture Pods team and I love being able to consistently deliver the best childcare experience to our clients!
​​Specialized certifications I've earned include multiple areas, child nutrition, international kid's yoga instructor, child development, early learning literacy, health & wellness, education, safety, communication, family relations, sensory processing and integration, special needs and so much more. Favorite behavior modification methods include The Whole Brain Child and a touch of Love & Logic. Working with children, motivates me to continually grow my knowledge and skills to offer the best to our families!
​I am so excited that you've come to learn more about us and hope to get to know you and your family as future clients and friends!​​
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-Tabitha Taylor​​
Discover Our Central Park Pods
Where nurturing your child's holistic well-being creates an ideal foundation for life
Through our play-based, holistic health focused model, infused with our favorite Montessori methods, sensory play integration and strong focus on social-emotional development, we offer a well-rounded style providing our students and their families with a premium early learning experience.
Our Whole Child Approach
Building our future the holistic way
From early math and literacy development to social skills, physical activity and music, Nurture Pods' children are constantly being exposed to new experiences that foster their natural curiosity. Our approach helps them understand themselves, each other, and how they relate in the world.
We focus on the strengths and interests of each child, while also supporting areas of challenge, to help each of them to build a solid foundation, a love of learning and trust in safe, caring providers. Our play-based curriculum incorporates our favorite Montessori methods that inspire us and features a variety of sensory experiences daily!
Through yoga, stories, games, music, group conversations, and breathing practice, our children are taught foundational mindfulness, compassion and coping strategies to begin to learn self-regulation by co-regulation with their attentive teacher. This approach, using Whole Brain methods, creates confident, peaceful, happy children and calm classrooms!
Parent Recommendations
Little Lions has been such a bright spot in the chaos of the last few years. As Mental Health Therapists (with a background in child-based therapy), we have high expectations for childcare environments. Lions has exceeded all of them! The children are treated with empathy, respect and gentle encouragement. There are always new activities to enjoy and learn from (sand trays! sign language! yoga!). The healthy, organic, and imaginative lunches are the cherry on top. Our son has been a "regular" for quite a while now and he couldn't be happier. We recommend Little Lions, and its additional locations, to everyone!
Melissa
We are so grateful to have our son be apart of Tiny Tiger’s loving and caring community. His growth, both socially and intellectually, was evident early on, and he quickly latched on to his teacher. His usual crying during drop off quickly changed into running into the house eager to learn and play. He asks daily if he can go to Indi’s house and has a big smile on his face at the sound of her name. Indi’s sincere care and full devotion to her kiddos is clear in the fun and diverse activities and healthy, delicious meals she provides. Her clear communication and trust with families is reassuring as she helps raise our son to care for others.
Sarah & Sean
Parent Quote
Coming soon
Parent Quote
Coming soon
Common Questions & Answers
What are the ages of your students? How long can children stay in the program?
Our youngest little ones start at 18 months old (exceptions could be made for slightly younger toddlers on case-by-case basis). New entry young toddlers begin in one of our smaller pod rooms (Tigers, Bears or Foxes) as a perfect transition from home, family or nanny care, into small group care, with only 3 other attending children in the classroom home (a 1:4 nanny-share ratio); here they will learn early social skills, routines, potty training and foundational classroom practices like choosing their work, cleaning up after play, short group circle times, and more. As they grow, learn, and become ready for new challenges (based upon availability) children move up to our Little Lions classroom with Ms. Tabitha plus a second assistant teacher.
The Lion room has an increased focus on early school readiness practices, literacy, math and STEM, beginning writing and phonics concepts, more school like routines such as working in groups, independent self-care, and much more in a play based, child-led manner. The Lion room is still only a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio, but through our state license can enroll up to 8 children total in this larger classroom home. Lion students can attend full days all the way to kindergarten, and then continue through 2nd grade in our after-school spots. Most new entry 2.5-3-year-olds will be directly enrolled into our original Little Lions classroom based on availability.
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We highly value the stability of children staying with us throughout their formative years and have a lot of experience and success getting them well prepared for learning in a larger school environment. Once moved to larger public and private school programs, we continue to hear positive feedback about how smoothly they adjusted with a solid foundation in place that we got to share in building.
What is the benefit of micropod care versus traditional daycare or home childcare?
We get this question a lot! We are separate but coordinated nanny-share groups hosted in different family home locations around Central Park, working together in one network, we share one central administrative office and program guidelines for enrollment, classroom support, structure and ease of child, parent and teacher experiences. Each of our classroom homes were designed exclusively for the care, safety and learning of our little ones. This unique approach takes all the positive qualities we love about different types of care and avoids many of the drawbacks that may be experienced in more traditional childcare environments.
Our classrooms offer the structure, safety, consistent schedule, administrative support, abundance of materials and reliability of a large center, but like a nanny-share, includes all the comforts, flexibility and warmth of a home environment with comfortable, stylish, child-sized furniture, handmade wooden toys, sensory activities, home-cooked, organic meals and snacks, lots of one-on-one attentions, and so much more. Each pod has separate rooms for learning, sleeping, eating and exercise in the gym room.
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We've thought of every little detail from our cozy organic cotton sleep sacks for each child's bed to white noise machines, camera monitors, and blackout curtains for restful sleep in the nap rooms.
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To keep parents in the loop, we post daily updates, photos and videos on our private Facebook group and use the childcare professional ProCare app to keep track of attendance, important details, boo boo reports, parent and emergency contacts.
What curriculum do you use?
Our program is primarily play-based learning which means minimal regimented "curriculum". Instead, we use a variety of Montessori methods by providing "work" each day that children can use to master foundational skills and foster independence. We use a lot of sensory play with a wide variety of materials and themes for endless ways to create, play and engage with the contents. Sensory play practice is well-known for building children's brains in the most optimal way! Each teacher brings their own unique signature style of teaching and self-planned curriculums to their own group, and we encourage this diverse approach, as it lends itself to a unique program with each room having its own style.
We utilize every opportunity to connect and communicate with our students in meaningful ways through natural play, following their individual developmental stages. There are times of day that are teacher-led activities like stories, circle time and movement, but other times of day our students have choice time and freedom to play with whatever interests them and linger as long as they'd like with their chosen interests. We use minimal technology and screens.
How do you integrate holistic wellness methods with toddlers?
We believe that mindful, intuitive care naturally addresses the holistic wellness of our students. Throughout our interactions with students, we consider their needs on every level and address them quickly. Our daily schedule provides predictability that children thrive under, our providers are affectionate, patient, emotionally in tune and teach our students techniques to manage their big emotions, needs and peer relationships.
We teach consistent yoga practice, deep belly breathing, mindfulness exercises, affirmations and awareness of self and others. Consistently talking our students through their interactions posing questions like "is your friend ok with playing this game?" "how did his face look when you pushed him?" "are you ok with a hug from your friend right now or do you need some space?" "what ideas do you have to make this better for both of you?" These concepts are uniquely situational and also can look different from one child to the next depending on many factors. We are always happy to help parents learn techniques we use in class that work well for their child too!
What health and wellness care practices and strategies are in place to address and minimize the spread of illness including flu, Covid, and other common childhood illnesses?
We are highly concerned about protecting the health and safety of all of our families and staff, we navigated the complexities of the pandemic, and now continue through typical childhood illnesses and have created a comprehensive health pledge plan that all our families sign upon enrollment and renew annually.
Our low ratios naturally mean less risk with less exposures to others. Many of our families and staff are immunized against Covid and flu. In addition, our health pledge plan addresses our high cleaning standards, health guidelines for symptoms, exposures, needed masking and testing of our students and families, as well as following all local recommendations by authorities like the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics. We have continually updated our health pledge policies with the latest recommendations, to reflect a sensible approach to all illnesses, seeking out healthcare expert advice and will continue to do everything we can to keep everyone as safe and healthy as we can!
What is it like teaching at Nurture Pods?
The administrative and client parent relationships with our team of teachers are a critical component of a successful program experience. Without happy caregivers who feel supported, respected, appreciated and well compensated, childcare programs experience high turnover. Our company culture is one of a kind, in that each team member is leading their own independent classroom; yet we share common goals, structure, and ideals, and we all seek to adhere to best practices, hold one another accountable and support each other in our professional growth and development. We come together choosing to utilize one collective pool of shared resources structuring a cooperative, positive relationship with client families and an uplifting environment to work within.
Everyone on our team has the autonomy to creatively express their own unique sets of talents, experiences, and interests. designing their own style for their room. From baking to sports, gardening, foreign language, yoga and other special skills, everyone shares, explores and cultivates their personal passions along with their students to enrich the experience for everyone. We all work hard together to support the children in our community.
What are the hours and locations of the classrooms?
Lions (Northfield) 8:30am-5:30pm
Bears (Northfield) 8am-5pm
Foxes (Eastbridge) 8:15am-5:15pm
Are meals included? What kinds of ingredients?
Yes! Meals and snacks are provided for all students and are a focal point of our holistic wellness-based program. Almost everything we serve is organic, particularly produce and animal products, and many items are locally grown or farmed.
Every lunch provides at least 5 different fruits & vegetables and 6 different colors on the plate. Our students are exposed to a wide variety of creative, tasty, child-friendly and carefully prepared home cooked meals. We use herbs and mild spices to introduce new flavors and expand the children's palates for healthy foods.
Children are welcomed to safely participate in preparation and we incorporate nutrition education every day! We work around allergies and any food restrictions.
