1/27

Anna and Ruby had fun playing in front of the mirror with the “ballerina bar” this morning. Our friends so enjoy watching themselves as they jump, dance, and bend!

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There were lots of claps and cheers today as Ruby walked around the classroom for the very first time! Everyone was so proud of her!

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We had more fun with the big blocks again this afternoon. Anna can do a big jump out of them and on to the carpet!

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Breakfast was Chex and pears. Lunch consisted of farm fresh eggs, blueberries, bananas, and mixed vegetables. Afternoon snack was homemade oatmeal and blackberry muffins from Wee Friends and string cheese. Wee sprouts was mixed vegetables.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1JFZ3Hw

WF Wednesday 1/27/16 GOOP!

*Reminder—Due dates for conference related materials:

  • The conference sign-up form is due this Friday, January 29th
  • The pre-conference form is due Friday, February 12th
  • The re-enrollment form & fee is due Friday, March 4th (the day of conferences)

Thank you! We look forward to talking with you at conference time.

Today’s big project today was an exploration of one of the coolest substances: GOOP! Friends explored the feel of cornstarch before it was combined with water and a little watercolor. The resulting mixture was a pink goop that is both a liquid and a solid!

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Friends took their time with this substance, feeling it with their fingers and hands. Later we added popsicle sticks so they could scrape and stir their goop. Most friends didn’t mind the messy nature of this project.

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Such focus!

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Kindergarten: Today’s kindergarten work continued to explore how simple geometric shapes can be combined to form larger shapes. We worked with some “Make a Shape” cards that gave children instructions for creating a shape. For example, the task may be to make a hexagon out of 1 trapezoid and 3 triangles. Many friends joined in this work! 

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Elliott came across a card that wanted him to make a hexagon out of 1 hexagon, 2 rhombuses, and 2 trapezoids. He was having trouble forming a hexagon until we realized that although those shapes could not make a regular hexagon, he could make an irregular hexagon: a shape with 6 sides that are not all equal! It was quite a discovery.

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Wee Sprouts: Tomatoes. Breakfast: Hot wheat cereal and fresh pears. Lunch: Scrambled farm fresh eggs with whole wheat bread, fresh pea pods and oranges. Snack: Refried beans and blue corn chips.

Link to the photo album: WF 1/27/2016

Have a wonderful Wednesday! –Jessica

WF Wednesday 1/27/16 GOOP!

*Reminder—Due dates for conference related materials:

  • The conference sign-up form is due this Friday, January 29th
  • The pre-conference form is due Friday, February 12th
  • The re-enrollment form & fee is due Friday, March 4th (the day of conferences)

Thank you! We look forward to talking with you at conference time.

Today’s big project today was an exploration of one of the coolest substances: GOOP! Friends explored the feel of cornstarch before it was combined with water and a little watercolor. The resulting mixture was a pink goop that is both a liquid and a solid!

DSCN1291DSCN1298

Friends took their time with this substance, feeling it with their fingers and hands. Later we added popsicle sticks so they could scrape and stir their goop. Most friends didn’t mind the messy nature of this project.

DSCN1302DSCN1307DSCN1310DSCN1345DSCN1320

Such focus!

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Kindergarten: Today’s kindergarten work continued to explore how simple geometric shapes can be combined to form larger shapes. We worked with some “Make a Shape” cards that gave children instructions for creating a shape. For example, the task may be to make a hexagon out of 1 trapezoid and 3 triangles. Many friends joined in this work! 

DSCN1359DSCN1366DSCN1369

Elliott came across a card that wanted him to make a hexagon out of 1 hexagon, 2 rhombuses, and 2 trapezoids. He was having trouble forming a hexagon until we realized that although those shapes could not make a regular hexagon, he could make an irregular hexagon: a shape with 6 sides that are not all equal! It was quite a discovery.

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Wee Sprouts: Tomatoes. Breakfast: Hot wheat cereal and fresh pears. Lunch: Scrambled farm fresh eggs with whole wheat bread, fresh pea pods and oranges. Snack: Refried beans and blue corn chips.

Link to the photo album: WF 1/27/2016

Have a wonderful Wednesday! –Jessica

WWF 1/26

Here’s some photos from the fun day our friends had!

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Breakfast was Kix cereal and apples. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with cheese, bananas, and carrots. Afternoon snack was toasted whole wheat bagels with cream cheese. Wee sprouts was corn.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/20slQKW

WF, 1/26/2016

Good Afternoon!

Kindergarten: Today our kindergarteners began working on one of our math FABs, K.G.4: Compose simple geometric shapes to form larger shapes (e.g. create a rectangle compose of two triangles). During sign-in Elizabeth and Elliott were tasked with creating a hexagon with a certain number of shapes (e.g. 1 trapezoid, 1 rhombus, 1 triangle or 6 triangles, etc.). They each took it to the next level by labeling and kid-spelling their shape diagrams!

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Later, this work was continued using pattern blocks to answer the question: how many ways can you make a triangle?

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We also helped Miss Melinda with a project! We gathered around the table where two of our plants were positioned in the center of the table. The plants needed to be re-potted in bigger pots. We decided to study the plants.

First, the question, “Is the soil wet or dry?” was asked along with “Does it need water right now?”. Friends corrilated dry soil to needing water.

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Each child got a turn to take the shovel and dump new soil into our new pot!

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When Miss Melinda pulled out the root ball, we noticed that there were roots at the bottom. A discussion was had about what roots do in a plant and how the water makes the plant healthy.

We now have happy plants Smile.

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Since we made our plants happy, we decided to make our bellies happy—> homemade muffins for snack!

First, we got together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl. After each friend got to take a turn stirring the mixture, we put it off to the side.

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Next came the wet ingredients! Elliott commented, “The oil is over there because it’s a wet ingredient!”

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We added yummy blackberries to them mixture. They were a BIG hit!

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Wee Sprouts– Cherry tomatoes.

Breakfast– Cheerios and blueberries.

Lunch– Shredded cheese quesadillas, cauliflower/sweet peppers, and banana/apple.

PM Snack– Homemade blackberry-oatmeal muffins and string cheese.

Hope everyone has a terrific night.

Link to pictures: WF 1/26

WWF 1/25

Please note: We are incorporating a morning snack (10:00) and a second afternoon snack (4:30) of veggies. Also, we are finding that parking is getting a little congested, especially at morning drop off. Parents are having a hard time finding a place to park. If everyone could pull up as far as you can, that would be very helpful and appreciated.

This morning, our friends made some new paintings for us to hang up in our classroom! Franklin and Ruby finger painted for a short time until they both had the idea to taste the paint. When they discovered how yucky it was, they decided they were done with that particular activity.

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Maggie enjoyed observing the classroom fishtank. She followed the fish around for a while and then gave one a big kiss!

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Ruby asked for each of the big blocks to be pulled out from under the habitrail. She would sit in one for a minute and then ask for the next one. I think she was testing them out for us!

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Breakfast was whole wheat toast with butter and pears. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with red beans, grapes, and peas. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and peas. Wee sprouts was corn.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1ZOltrG

WWF 1/25

Please note: We are incorporating a morning snack (10:00) and a second afternoon snack (4:30) of veggies. Also, we are finding that parking is getting a little congested, especially at morning drop off. Parents are having a hard time finding a place to park. If everyone could pull up as far as you can, that would be very helpful and appreciated.

This morning, our friends made some new paintings for us to hang up in our classroom! Franklin and Ruby finger painted for a short time until they both had the idea to taste the paint. When they discovered how yucky it was, they decided they were done with that particular activity.

IMG_8607IMG_8622

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Maggie enjoyed observing the classroom fishtank. She followed the fish around for a while and then gave one a big kiss!

IMG_8633IMG_8635IMG_8636

Ruby asked for each of the big blocks to be pulled out from under the habitrail. She would sit in one for a minute and then ask for the next one. I think she was testing them out for us!

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Breakfast was whole wheat toast with butter and pears. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with red beans, grapes, and peas. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and peas. Wee sprouts was corn.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1ZOltrG

WF Monday 1/25/16

This week begins a new set of FABs. One of our focuses is K.G.2: Compare shapes using informal language to describe their similarities, differences, and parts (e.g. number of sides, length of sides and vertices). This morning we played a game involving shapes that gave us an opportunity to talk about different shapes and their properties.

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While not every friend participated in the game in the same way (such as spinning the spinner), everyone had a chance to hold, match and investigate many shapes.

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Later, our younger friends were invited to the table to complete a journal page. We talked about the process of creating a journal: drawing a picture, writing about your drawing, putting a sticker and date stamp on your page and then putting it in your binder. This multi-step process is a lot for our younger friends to learn, so it requries much practice and patience.

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The scribbles and lines our young toddlers do on their journals may seem inconsequential, but it is actually the first step towards writing and completely developmentally appropriate!

Kindergarten: Part of today’s kindergarten work included a prompt to write and draw about what they did this weekend. This work provided Elliott and Elizabeth with a chance to not only express themselves, but also practice kid-spelling. Each kindergartner focused on different things according to what they needed to work on. For example, Elizabeth and Jessica talked about capitalizing the first letter of a sentence, spacing and ending punctuation. She made valentines this weekend!

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Today the weather finally cooperated and we were able to go outside. Friends were a BIG help with shoveling all the snow in the backyard. The new child-size snow shovels Tami bought were the perfect size for the Wee Friends!

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The snowy slide was also very slippery (to friends’ delight).

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Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Toasted whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter and fresh pears. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with red beans, fresh cauliflower, grapes and raspberries. Snack: Organic whole milk yogurt and granola.

Link to the photo album: WF 1/25/2016

Have a wonderful day! –Jessica

WF Monday 1/25/16

This week begins a new set of FABs. One of our focuses is K.G.2: Compare shapes using informal language to describe their similarities, differences, and parts (e.g. number of sides, length of sides and vertices). This morning we played a game involving shapes that gave us an opportunity to talk about different shapes and their properties.

DSCN1091DSCN1092

While not every friend participated in the game in the same way (such as spinning the spinner), everyone had a chance to hold, match and investigate many shapes.

DSCN1095DSCN1093

Later, our younger friends were invited to the table to complete a journal page. We talked about the process of creating a journal: drawing a picture, writing about your drawing, putting a sticker and date stamp on your page and then putting it in your binder. This multi-step process is a lot for our younger friends to learn, so it requries much practice and patience.

DSCN1109DSCN1110DSCN1112

The scribbles and lines our young toddlers do on their journals may seem inconsequential, but it is actually the first step towards writing and completely developmentally appropriate!

Kindergarten: Part of today’s kindergarten work included a prompt to write and draw about what they did this weekend. This work provided Elliott and Elizabeth with a chance to not only express themselves, but also practice kid-spelling. Each kindergartner focused on different things according to what they needed to work on. For example, Elizabeth and Jessica talked about capitalizing the first letter of a sentence, spacing and ending punctuation. She made valentines this weekend!

DSCN1115DSCN1118DSCN1108

Today the weather finally cooperated and we were able to go outside. Friends were a BIG help with shoveling all the snow in the backyard. The new child-size snow shovels Tami bought were the perfect size for the Wee Friends!

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The snowy slide was also very slippery (to friends’ delight).

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Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Toasted whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter and fresh pears. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with red beans, fresh cauliflower, grapes and raspberries. Snack: Organic whole milk yogurt and granola.

Link to the photo album: WF 1/25/2016

Have a wonderful day! –Jessica

WWF 1/22

Ruby was looking out one of the habitrail windows and saw something outside that interested her. She started pointing at it, which made Anna and David curious. They joined her at the window and pointed at it, too! We’re not sure what caught their attention, but it must have been impressive!

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A lot of fun happened in the gross motor area today. Anna made a long train track, Maggie went down the slide on her belly, Franklin played peek-a-boo in the tunnel, and Ruby made herself a teeter totter out of a soft star!

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Breakfast was corn flakes and apples. Lunch consisted of rice with cheese and chicken, pears, and peas. Afternoon snack was graham crackers and string cheese.

Have a great weekend!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1TdPwJz