Happy Friday!

I looked around this morning and saw almost every space in the environment occupied by children who were engaged, happy, and thriving. It got me to thinking about the different learning styles of the sixteen children we have here at Wee Friends. As children get older, their learning style(s) become more prominent. At this age, we make sure to have an area or an activity that adheres to each learning style so that children are challenged in a way that’s meaningful to them. A child who may be an auditory learner may not have to sit and listen to a story; they could sit at the art table while still being able to listen to the story and gain the same comprehension.

I’ve attached an article that explains the primary learning styles in early education while also diving into the other learning styles that aren’t as notable at this age.

“As different as we are from one another, as unique as each one of us is, we are much more the same than we are different. That may be the most essential message of all, as we help our children grow toward being caring, compassionate, and charitable adults. –Fred Rogers

https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/diverse-learning-styles-in-early-childhood-education/

Children headed to the art table to create different art projects. Chloe got a long piece of paper and wrote a grocery list for her mom while a six year old drew several starfish. He counted all of the dots that he drew on the starfish, adding up to over 100!

We had several students who were learning kinesthetically including:

Movement during music time.

Using our fine motor skills to count, sort, and describe several different manipulatives including gems, shells, and hexagon counters.

Anna and Lucy took the shells and sorted them into equal groups so that every child at the light table had the same amount. We talked about their characteristics using descriptive words including; bumpy, smelly, soft, small, and big.

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and PPC banana.

Lunch– Homemade english muffin pizzas, PPC banana/clementines, and PPC cucumbers/carrots.

PM snack– Homemade banana bread and block cheese.

Wee Sprout– PPC cucumber.

Have a terrific weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/26

Good Afternoon.  Enjoy some of the pictures from our fabulous day!

Breakfast:  Whole grain Cheerios and fresh PPC clementines.

Lunch:  Whole grain brown rice with shredded beef, fresh PPC bananas and peas.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain wheat crackers and hummus.

Wee Sprouts:  Peas.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulib4KgA6akI4cAg-MUg

Good Afternoon!

**Just a reminder that conference forms (pre-conference AND conference time preference) are due tomorrow (Friday, January 26th). Thank you!

Miss Melinda called everyone to the reading area this morning. She brought in an article that talked about ‘potty duck’ and it’s creator.

First, Miss Melinda asked what a newspaper is for and Lucy said, “It shares information!”. This lead us to share our memories of taking potty duck home.

Later on in the morning, several children gathered at the island to help make play dough. Before we added the ingredients, we took a vote to see what two colors of play dough we would make. Each child got to vote on one color and after we all gave our answers, we tallied up the votes. Friends were shown and told what tally marks look like and what they’re used for. Once we tallied each color, we had two winners: purple and orange!

Each child had the opportunity to help add an ingredient or stir the mixture once all of the ingredients were added. A few friends stayed at the island to watch as I mixed it on the stove. After it cooled down, we were able to test our work.

Pizza. Police Officer. Trash can. Just a few of the items that we made with our new play dough.

Breakfast– Nature’s Path Organic Maple Pecan Crunch and PPC pears/banana.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded beef and cheese, PPC banana, and PPC cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Roasted chick peas and goldfish.

Wee Sprout– PPC cherry tomatoes.

Have a great evening.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF, 1/25

Good Afternoon!

Yesterday afternoon after the blog was posted, Miss Marty made a new sensory recipe called Fluffy Slime. The children were able to explore its look and feel as they played with it. Today, children were give some rolling pins and wooden hammers to flatten it or make prints in it.

We were busy driving our transportation vehicles around the carpet before we took it in to the kitchen to make a train track on the table for our trains.

Aggie was Mack and Emma’s magnatile building helper as she handed the magnatiles to them. She also shared them with Pascale.

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and fresh clementines.

Lunch:  Scrambled eggs, whole grain wheat flatbread, clementines and carrots.

Afternoon Snack:  Pretzels and cheddar block cheese.

Wee Sprouts:  Carrots.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulibxW80ChEDv9hBldCw

Good Afternoon!

Here are a few pictures from our day!

“Every child has a different learning style and pace. Each child is unique, not only capable of learning but also capable of succeeding.”

-Robert John Meehan

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal and PPC kiwi.

Lunch– Farm fresh scrambled eggs, whole wheat tortilla, PPC pears, and fresh carrots.

PM snack– Air popped popcorn and PPC banana.

Wee Sprout– PPC cherry tomatoes/snap peas.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/24

ANNOUNCEMENT. Due to the increase of children bringing toys from home to school, the teachers ask for you to have your child leave those toys at home or in the car. It causes too many problems in the classroom.  Thank you.

Good Afternoon!

We enjoyed picking up and tossing the bean bags into the big block.

This morning we painted with a loofa using the primary colors. The children enjoyed mixing the colors together to make orange, purple and green. After a while we started to use our fingers to spread our paint around on our papers.

We all enjoyed building or playing with the magnatiles within our own skill level.

Breakfast:  Whole grain Cheerios and PPC banana.

Lunch:  Shredded Cheese quesadillas on whole grain wheat flatbread, PPC kiwi and corn.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts:  Corn.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulibt4CA-FfBSgQTCluw

Good Afternoon!

**Housekeeping request: We’ve been having several children bring in toys from home. This is causing problems from time to time so we’re asking that you have your child leave their toys in the car.  Wee Friends offers interactive, engaging, and developmentally appropriate toys for our students to utilize while they’re here. We would greatly appreciate your help with this!

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It was a BIG day for our kindergarteners. When Maddie signed into her kindergarten sign in binder, she read the words that I had written which prompted me to get out our BOB books. Shortly after breakfast, her interest peaked which lead to reading the first four BOB books! Not only was she excited and proud of herself, but younger peers watched as she navigated several BOB books.

Another kindergartener is fascinated with dinosaurs and often integrates them into his journaling. Today, he memorized how to spell ‘Psittacosaurus’ which is one of his favorite dinosaurs. His face beamed as he commented, “I didn’t even need to look how to spell it—I remembered!”

Children will learn to read and write when they are ready. What can we do until they are ready?: Support, encourage, nurture, and love them while they come upon these big ‘life’ milestones.

Lucy and Ruby explored a ‘shape matching’ activity at the island this morning. As they matched the shape, we talked about the characteristics of each shape.

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

“Learning is not a race for information, it’s a walk of discovery.”

Breakfast– Kix and PPC kiwi.

Lunch– Shredded cheese on whole wheat flatbread, PPC banana, and PPC cucumber.

PM snack– Whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and mozzarella cheese stick.

Wee Sprout– PPC snap peas/cherry tomatoes.

Have a fantastic evening.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF, 1/23

Good Afternoon!

This morning we were busy in the kitchen finger painting! We were given the opportunity to help choose the colors we would like to use. We enjoyed making lines in the paint with our fingers and mixing new colors together.

We were all about our books today. We enjoyed having many stories read to us.

We were all very busy through out our day in the habitrail area using many of our favorite activities.

Breakfast:  Whole grain wheat English muffin with cream cheese and clementines.

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat pasta with chicken, fresh PPC kiwi and broccoli.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain wheat crackers and colby jack block cheese.

Wee Sprouts:  Corn.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulibs1s_YMAIoLDpQk9g

Good Afternoon!

We have a student from Ivy Tech who is doing her practicum with us this semester. Miss Katie will be here until the beginning of May!

Max, Lucy, and Anna explored the use of their fine motor skills this morning as they took a wet cotton swab to essentially erase all of the uppercase letters that were written on the chalkboard. Several skills were being used here including fine motor skills, letter recognition, and communication. Lucy, who is an older preschooler, helped Max and Anna when they were unsure of a letter.

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

In large group, we read ‘Dinosaur Alphabet Book’. We picked out several words in the story and as a group, we came up with many rhyming words. There were actual words and then a few nonsensical words thrown in there too! Anna said, “I feel like volcano and fire rhyme a little bit.” As a group, we talked about what rhyming words are and what they sound like.

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

The rest of our morning look a little something like this–

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with butter and PPC clementines.

Lunch– Whole wheat noodles with butter and shredded chicken, PPC kiwi/clementines, and PPC cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts– PPC snap peas/cherry tomatoes.

Have a great evening.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF, 1/22

Happy Friday!

In large group, we read ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ which lead us to count the syllables in each of the animals that were a main focus in the story. When we were almost done, a kindergartener said, “Hey! There are three animals so far that have two syllables!”. Hippopotamus was a challenging word for our friends as we really had to focus to find all five syllables in the word.

K.RF.3.2: Orally segment words into syllables.

Our ‘Music Garden’ class started this morning lead by Miss Melinda! It’s a fifteen week class that eight of our children are apart of. The fifteen week class will focus on all aspects of music.

While the Music Garden class was going on, the rest of our friends occupied themselves with various activities.

Anna and Maddie matched uppercase letters to lowercase letters using the cardboard box activity. Afterwards, they worked together to find the syllables in several words using clip cards. Anna was having difficulty with the three syllable words so Maddie helped her by showing her how she counts syllables.

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

K.RF.3.2: Orally segment words into syllables.

The art table was also transformed into a play dough exploration center this morning where things from poisonous worms to hot dogs were created.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

-Albert Einstein

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and PPC kiwi.

Lunch– Turkey or ham on whole wheat bread, PPC banana, and PPC broccoli.

PM snack– Mozzarella string cheese with goldfish.

Wee Sprout– PPC broccoli.

Have a fantastic weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/19