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Cottonwood Heights Journal

Cottonwood Heights Rec center has space for Little Crazy People

Mar 21, 2019 01:16PM ● By Josh Wood

Children can enjoy active learning time at the recreation center’s new program.

By Joshua Wood | [email protected]

When Karyn Anderson had a hard time finding a place where her toddler could act his age, she decided to create that place herself. Little Crazy People, the program she designed for kids ages 1–3, has now come to Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center.

The program offers 45-minute classes once per week that focus on learning and movement for little people who need to be moving. “The point is to have fun and learn while moving,” Anderson said. “Kids are fine the way they are. They don’t have to sit and be quiet.”

Little Crazy People is the kind of program Anderson would have loved to find for her toddler years ago. “My little boy, who is 9 now, was very active,” Anderson said. “He wouldn’t sit still for toddler activities, and I would always leave early.”

Anderson decided to develop a program of her own that was designed for busy kids who have a hard time sitting still during activities. The program incorporates movement into its lessons. While initially designed to help kids have fun and get some exercise, it has evolved over the years to be more academic. Kids can work on their colors, letters and numbers while they move.

Anderson, who is from Cottonwood Heights, now lives in Heber and started Little Crazy People there. She now has weekly classes in Sandy as well as Cottonwood Heights. Kids get to move around while they learn. In one lesson, kids practice learning their colors as they pick up colored balls from the middle of the room and put them in baskets of the corresponding color.

“Little 1-year-olds pick up the balls but don’t have their colors yet,” Anderson said. “Three-year-olds work on their colors. If they get the lesson, great. If not, they learned something anyway like sharing and social skills.”

Anderson brings a rich background to the program. She gained a lot of experience individualizing education as a special education teacher for around 10 years. Hoping to help affect change in education policy, she went to law school and became a lawyer. She practiced law part time after staring a family, then decided to take a hiatus from law as her family grew.

Finding classes or activities that would work for her children was a challenge. “It made me feel like a mom failure because I couldn’t find a class,” she said. Anderson emphasizes a friendly environment where kids can be kids.

Parents can sign their toddlers up for Little Crazy People through the Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center. Classes are once per week and grouped into monthly sessions from September through May. Anderson then takes her work on the road as she and her husband conduct summer camps in places like Georgia, Colorado and Washington, DC.

Anderson is excited to have classes in Cottonwood Heights, and she wants everyone to feel welcome.

“I want everybody to feel no judgement. We are patient with all the kids.”