Good Afternoon!

Geometric shapes were made in various places on the classroom this morning. On the sign in message, friends had to count the sides and length of the shapes to find the square!

The geoboards and rubber bands were put at the circle table. Using the rubber bands, we made various shapes including triangle, square, rectangle, and diamond.

K.4.1: Identify and describe geometric objects: circle, triangle, square, rectangle, diamond, trapezoid, hexagon, octagon, parallelogram, sphere, and cube. (2006 standard)

The habitrail was hopping with little people and the quiet sounds of the piano.

In large group, we read a story titled, “Elmer and the Rainbow’. Elmer was selfless throughout the story, offering a clear rainbow his colors. Thankfully, not only did the rainbow get Elmer’s colors but he kept them! We guessed throughout the story what would happen to Elmer’s colors if he did in fact give them to the rainbow.

Afterwards, we searched for the missing letters. Each friend got a turn to come up and add the missing letters to the upper and lower case letters.

This interest transferred to large group as friends were anxious to write letters. Lucy commented, “I want to write about my letters today.” Together, we wrote ‘bee’ and ‘box’ to describe her journal. The first thing Lulu did was write an X in the middle of her journaling, noting, “This looks like an X!”

K.W.2.1: Write most uppercase ad lowercase letters of the alphabet, correctly shaping and spacing.

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and blueberries.

Lunch– Refried bean and shredded cheese on whole wheat flatbread, banana/kiwi, and cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– PPC pineapple and air popped popcorn

Wee Sprout– Snap peas.

Have a terrific evening.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/25

Today, our friend Anna brought one of her favorite books, No David! by David Shannon  to share with us. Thank you, your friends really enjoyed listening to it.

We have a bird feeder on the side of the house next to the alley. The children were busy taking turns helping to fill it for the birds to enjoy when our winter weather returns.

The art table was used quite a bit today. An open ended activity was made available using paper, glue, and various geometric shapes. Children used the multitude of shapes to create their own collage using glue. Once the gluing interest was over, several children got out the markers and drawing books to make their own drawing creations.

K.4.1 Identify and describe geometric objects: circle, triangle, square, rectangle, diamond, trapezoid, hexagon, octagon, parallelogram, sphere, and cube. (2006 standard)

In large group, we read a story titled, ‘Angelina Ice Skates’. Using various words that we saw in the story, we created our own word families. We started with the words, ‘bat’, ‘no’, and ‘can’. Each word was discussed and together, we came up with a word family for each, or rhyming words. Even after the activity was over and we moved onto calendar, friends were still trying to create their own rhyming words .

K.RF.3.1: Identify and produce rhyming words.

Breakfast: Kashi’s blueberry clusters and PPC red grapes.

Lunch: Egg salad on whole wheat bread, PPC pineapple and PPC broccoli and cherry tomatoes.

Afternoon Snack: Whole wheat bagels with cream cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Cauliflower.

-Rebekah and Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/24

We love our gross motor area!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and kiwi. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of whole wheat bread, egg salad, kiwi, and corn. Afternoon snack was toasted whole wheat bagel with cream cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulh6R_HWA_tKcq3hnYrQ

Have a great night!

Amanda

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Today we made funny faces through the transparent stackers…

Made more funny faces behind the colorful tissues and tossed them into the air…

Fed babies their bottles…

And played on and under the habitrail slide!

Breakfast was whole wheat toast with butter and cinnamon and banana. Wee sprout was peas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with chicken, peas, and oranges. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and raisins.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulh6NspLwEVbwSyyZ6Xw

Have a good night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

**At pickup, please check your child’s cubby to make sure there is one of the following: hats, gloves, snow pants, and boots. There are some children with multiple pieces and we’re trying to clear cubby space. Thank you!

We want to send a big thank you out to Jackson, Max, and their parents for buying two new goldfish over the weekend for our tank. This past week, we had two fish pass away so they were kind enough to ask if they could buy us some new ones. The new fish seemed to adapt fairly well today and enjoyed many, many eyes on them throughout the day!

The magnatiles were used at various times throughout the morning. Most of the time, it isn’t just the magnatiles that we use to create. Animals, both small and big, along with cars are used to create zoo’s, car shops, and houses. Open ended toys such as these allow for our imaginations to run wild. Children have the opportunity to build whatever they so choose; there is no right or wrong.

Our floor puzzles have been a hot ticket item with our older kids the last couple of weeks. The big floor puzzles focus on our spatial recognition skills as well as fine motor skills.

We needed to work with our hands early this morning so the moon sand was made available. For quite some time, we were at max capacity with four friends!

We made it outside! Even though there was no snow, we still got all the way bundled up since it was a little wet. Elijah sat at the top of the log house and commented, “There’s smoke coming out of the roof!” I told him that means our furnace is working!

A bucket of bird seed was brought out so we could finish our self-made bird feeders. We made these before Christmas break and since we were outside, we finished them up.

In large group, we read ‘Bella and Stella Come Home’. In the story, Bella and her stuffed animal, Stella, move to a new home. Throughout the story, they find out that just because it’s new, doesn’t mean it is bad.

After the story was done, we talked about rhyming words. Using the title as an example, we looked for rhyming words. Multiple friends popped up, “Bella and Stella rhyme!” After, we discussed what it means to ‘rhyme’. Each friend came up with their own example of rhyming words. Not only were we able to recognize rhyming words when we saw them but we were able to create our own!

During journal time, friends are showing interest in writing their own words. There are times when they want to ‘teacher spell’ which is where I write it down on a piece of paper and they copy it onto theirs OR we spell it together. While it’s important to spell words correctly, we need to make sure that what we’re teaching is developmentally appropriate. Developmentally, most children hear consonants before vowels. That’s where ‘kid spelling’ comes into play.

As we sound out words, the skill of hearing singular sounds comes to fruition. For example, the word ‘run’. Depending on the developmental level of the child, they may hear the consonants ‘r’ and ‘n’. Eventually, when children are ready, they will hear that ‘u’ and it will be meaningful to them because THEY heard it.

Breakfast– Cinnamon raisin bagels with butter and banana.

Lunch– Whole wheat noodles with chicken and butter, banana, and carrots/cauliflower.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt and blueberries.

Wee Sprout– Carrots.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/23

Happy Friday!

**Housekeeping note: Please check your child’s cubby as well as their art cubby. If there are any papers/creations, please go ahead and take them home. There is a cubby filled with grocery bags that you are free to use! Thank you!

Also, thank you to everyone for turning in their conference form in a timely manner. We look forward to meeting with each family next month!

We see print all throughout our classroom, whether it’s the names on our cubbies or in different activities that are presented each day.

The welcome activity this morning consisted of a letter guide along with wooden Montessori letters. Children took one red Montessori letter at a time and matched it to the guide that was provided.

Our letter guide is also used during journaling time for children to use as a resource if they want to write about their journal either with teacher assistance or kid spelling.

K.RF.2.4: Identify and name all uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

Lucy and Jackson requested one of the red hearts this morning. In it, they found red hearts numbered to 20. They took out one heart at a time, calling out what number was written on it. After all of the hearts were taken out, they put them in the correct order, starting with 1 and ending with 20.

K.NS.4: Perform one to one correspondence tasks.

The trio blocks were used all morning long. Various creations were made and Max ended up testing his creation to see if it would stay on the countertop—mission accomplished!

What a great week we had!

Breakfast– Rice cakes with cream cheese.

Lunch– Turkey breast and cream cheese tortillas, PPC watermelon/banana, and cherry tomatoes/broccoli.

PM snack– Bananas and cheddar block cheese.

Wee Sprout– Carrots.

Have a fantastic weekend.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/20

Today we tried something new and painted with cotton balls. Sophia dragged her cotton balls in lines across the paper and Sonya dabbed hers like a stamp. Ruby made a big swirl in the middle of her paper and said it was a lion and a big gorilla hand!

A big chunk of our day was spent in the gross motor area. Our friends fill the room with laughter while they run and play together on the habitrail.

After snack our friends sat and read books alone and together. Then everyone gathered around as Miss Marty read them their favorite teacher books.

Breakfast was corn flakes and oranges. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with turkey and cream cheese, peas, and watermelon. Afternoon snack was cheese crackers and string cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulh6IXRi68B7t3jj-CDg

Enjoy your weekend!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

Various animals were used as props in our play today. Friends lined them up and made up games revolving around their animals.

An art activity was made available this morning using hearts and various colors of paint. We’re going to decorate the tree branch in our room since we took down our decorations this morning.

We brought up our Valentines box this morning. On the circle table, we put heart containers as well as red marbles for children to explore. Addi and Jackson sat together and counted out the same amount of marbles to put into each container.

After the containers were full, Jackson created a path around the table for the containers using letters and numbers. When he put one on the table, he called it out (this is a lower case m).

K.RF.2.4: Identify and name all uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

K.NS.4: Perform one to one correspondence tasks.

In large group, we read ‘Elmer’s Special Day’. Elmer was the main character in the story that revolved around a special parade that celebrated Elmer! After the story was over, we talked about all of our names, counting the syllables for each name. Boy, do we have a lot of three syllable names!

On the calendar, there was a half colored in circle on today’s date. After going through the month, day, and date, Jackson noticed the circle. I drew a figure on the chalk board and we talked about how that represents what the moon will look like tonight. If it’s warm enough and not too late, have your child look outside to see if they can see the moon. It’s been a tad cloudy as of late but the group seemed quite interested in how the moon changes day to day.

During journaling, friends enjoy conversing with one another. Not only is it a great way for children to learn from one another but it allows for personal relationships to grow. While we try to keep the conversations solely on what we’re journaling about, it’s a great time to get to know one another.

Breakfast– Chex and pears.

Lunch– Organic brown rice with chicken, cucumbers/cherry tomatoes, and PPC grapes.

PM snack– Graham crackers and pepita seeds aka pumpkin seeds.

Wee Sprout– Cucumber.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/19

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast was toast with butter and cinnamon. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with chicken, pear, and corn. Afternoon snack was pretzels and block cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulh6EaPLQJHeg0xN0nFg

Have a great night!

Amanda

Today we played with flubber…

Played with musical instruments…

Dressed up…

Played a silly game of peek-a-boo…

And hopped, climbed, and crawled in the gross motor area!

Breakfast was Kix and banana. Wee sprout was mixed vegetable. Lunch consisted of farm fresh eggs, whole wheat bread, banana, and corn. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with sunflower butter.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulh59JzObb5XuNI60lAA

Have a great night!

Amanda