Updated

A day care worker who left a pair of toddlers at a New York mall while she went home to "teach them a lesson" has been sentenced to probation.

Nicole Noble pleaded guilty in July to child abandonment and endangerment charges. She was sentenced Thursday in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead.

Noble was arrested last December after police say she took a 2-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl to a mall in Bay Shore on Long Island and returned home to Brooklyn without them. The children were found playing alone.

The 35-year-old Noble said she left them because they misbehaved and played hide-and-seek.

State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro's sentence also calls for Noble to undergo mental health treatment. She is banned from working as a child care provider.