Some of you may have heard the wonderful news. This weekend we invested in a 12 passenger van (2007 Ford E350XL) for Wee Friends field trips. It can transport 10 children at a time and the car seats are all loaded and ready for us to take off! Those that have seen me each Tuesday loading the car seats in my Honda know how happy this makes me.

With the Weehicle, I have changed the WF farm schedule to take more children each week and you will find the revised schedule in your cubbies. The WWF trip stays the same. On most weeks I will take Melinda or Laurie with me to the farm, leaving just a few children to enjoy small group activities back at Wee Friends.

Inspired by the conversations about Sleeping Beauty and roses, we gathered as many different plants and flowers as we could find in our backyard and put them in a tub. We set out paint and invited Wee Friends to use the plants/flowers as paint brushes.

Stephen and Nate were particularly interested in exploring the plants without paint. Stephen identified a bug in the tub! Many friends made a collage of painted images with the flower/plant brushes. Alma chose two plants and kept the images they created separated on her paper canvas.

 Completely independently, Nate and Umi sequenced like shaped Magna-Tiles creating a standing rectangular track.

Another math manipulative came off the shelf – The Peg Board. Macy, Alexandra and Ada spent time pushing pegs into and out of the board, creating many shapes and patterns. Kai is working on Kindergarten math lessons. Today he drew lines on a grid, counted to 18 and practiced writing the corresponding numbers.

 We read another adaptation of Sleeping Beauty (by Kinuko Y. Craft) and compared/contrasted the story, characters and illustrations to the Disney version we’ve been reading at school.

Jane and Annie enjoyed creating their own music today and danced with roses.

We filled a tub with warm soapy water and added plastic fairies/ princesses and other small princess toys, a dolly, rose petals and morning glory leaves. Melinda commented that among the many sensorial activities we experience, water play is always the #1 choice!

For lunch, we served whole grain flat bread, ham slices, butternut squash with tomatoes and applesauce.

Enjoy a restful weekend!

Felt Rocks!

This morning, Paulina brought in her collection of wool. She led Wee Friends in an exploration on how to transform wool into felt. She describes:

“Continuing our rock sensorial explorations today, we explored the contrast between the cold rocks and warm wool. We also noticed that Fall is near and weather is getting cold. To make our rocks warmer and ready for winter, we learned how to felt wool and shape it into little coats for our rocks. The process involved taking little pieces of wool and laying them out flat on bubble wrap. We then dipped them into warm, soapy water and rubbed it with the bubble wrap. Finally, we let them dry outside in a sunny area.” As Paulina worked with each Wee Friend, she sang along to the action she was performing. (Ex: “rub rub rub-rub a dub dub” as the rocks were rubbed by the bubble wrap.)

This week, Addi has been very interested in the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. Her interest has been contagious and many friends have enjoyed hearing the story read 4-5 times over the last couple days. Yesterday, during an improvisation, Ada laid perfectly still with her arms over her chest, just as Sleeping Beauty did in the book. When asked “What kind of flower is SB holding?” Alexandra exclaimed “A rose!” The parts of the story that have ignited the most interest are the rose that SB holds as she sleeps, Maleficent, the wicked fairy, the prince’s kiss and the sharp needle on the spinning wheel. To our classroom, we added briar roses in the archway, a spinning wheel and a basket of roses. We played Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and let the magic unfold!

Annie’s favorite part was pricking her finger and falling into a deep sleep. Stephen like to hold the rose up to the wheel and see how fast he could spin it!

Jane loved holding the roses and dancing. She also enjoyed telling Maleficent “Nothing happens to me when I touch the needle!” Nate willingly wore a black scarf to become Maleficent’s assistant, the black raven. Arleigh loves scary music and wanted to hear the scary beginning of our track over and over. Umi and Alma also love dancing. They found Angelina and the Princess and after hearing it read, pretended to be princess ballerinas.

Kai fully embodied the Prince offering friendly kisses to revive Sleeping Beauty. He noticed how Maleficent puts chains on the Prince and enjoyed the sensation of breaking free from the scarf chains he created. Macy hid all of our roses and led her friends on a Flower Hunt.

Soon we had an entire court of characters telling the story!

We ended our Creative Drama experience by gathering on our rose blanket and singing “Lavender Blue” with Paulina!

Melinda played “Tingalayo”, “Down by the Bay” and “Shake My Sillies Out” on the accordian. She changed the words to the last song and friends stretched, jumped, wiggled and hopped their sillies out!

When things settled and quieted, we connected that Paulina’s wool was the very thing that the spinning wheel could spin! A few older friends explored this further.

For lunch, we served turkey and cheese on whole wheat tortillas, cranberry/pear fruit salad and fresh cherry tomatoes.

Have a great day!

Annie, Jane, Kai and Macy went to swimming lessons this morning! Their system ( and all friends who leave the classroom for an activity) is to put their shoes on and find a spot in the kitchen to wait as Tami prepares for the journey.

At school there were many interesting conversations happening! Melinda led a discussion on where all the housekeeping materials belong. Friends know they are responsible, after playing with a toy, to return it to it’s ‘home’. This on-going discussion enables Wee Friends enjoy the personal success of having followed the direction “please return the toy to it’s place when you are done playing with it.”

 Kai, Ada, Annie and Jane were warning their friends about the ‘hot lava’ in hopscotch. The teacher asked “where is the hot lava?” On the red circle, of course! This sparked an interesting conversation about what the other colors in hopscotch may represent. Blue was, hands down, the cool ocean. Yellow was both a crawdad and a field of grass. Green was also a field of grass and a crab. These four friends expressed that red was fiery and hot while blue was cool and soft.

 When Jane started singing we jumped into our new WF Anthem and before we knew it the room filled up with the WF chorus belting out their new song.

 Owen and Umi spent a while in the science center together exploring The Visual Encyclopedia of Science. Owen shared his knowledge of ships with Umi, stopping for several minutes to study a special ship that retracts minerals from the ocean floor.

 Umi took her shoes off and put them back on several times, mastering this fine motor exercise (and taking care of an ouchie!).

When Melinda took Stephen and Owen outside to repair a bike wheel, ‘the girls’ gathered around the art table and created art with purple paper, pink paint. We dipped a straw into the paint and blew!

Alma and a few other friends blew, while Addi and Arleigh also used the straw as a paintbrush.

 When Addi requested that we read Sleeping Beauty, friends gathered and laid on the floor (just like SB) to listen to the book. After reading, we practiced bowing as princes and princesses. We took our exploration to the truck room and built castles.

Outside Melinda set up ” Knock Down the Gourd with a Ball”!!

For lunch we served melted cheese on whole wheat tortillas, peas and banana/pineapple fruit salad.

Have a terrific day!