**IUSB’s ‘Teddy Bear Concert’ is coming up! The concert is featuring the IUSB’s dance troop, student choirs, the South Bend Symphonic Choir (which is the choir in residence) and the Christmas Carolers which feature our very own Maddie and Lulu!

Details: Friday, December 8th at 7 pm at IUSB’s Northside Auditorium.

IF YOU BRING A NEW TEDDY BEAR, YOU GET IN FREE OF CHARGE!

If you have any questions, please refer to the poster posted by the cubbies at Wee Friends.

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Maddie and Lulu explored our new globe this morning. We’re gearing up for our new FAB starting on Monday that focuses on globes and maps. Lulu travels to Germany quite frequently so we looked at the distance between South Bend, Indiana and Germany. Maddie asked to find Montana and St. Louis, two places that she’s familiar with. Maddie also asked to find..Madagascar! We found it .

Miss Kim taught us a new trick with the old, dried out markers. We took cups of water and dipped the tip of the marker into the water. The marker color was then transferred to the paper! Children used paper flowers to create with, cut, and explore.

Maxwell found out that three is better than one when transferring a bucket FULL of rocks.

“We didn’t realize we were making memories. We just knew we were having fun.”

Breakfast- Rice cakes with peanut butter and PPC pears.

Lunch– Hummus on whole wheat flatbread, PPC apples, and fresh carrots/snap peas.

PM snack– Pretzels with string cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots.

Have a fantastic weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 12/1

Can’t believe it is the last day of November!

Today we used the table as a prop while we played with our babies. We crawled under and put the blanket over it as if it was the covers for our bed.

A friend requested play dough as our sensory activity. We used our fine motor skills to place golf tees into our play dough after pounding it out with a wooden hammer or rolling it out with a rolling pin.

Miss Marty styled our hair. Emma and Sophia each had 3 pony tails while Mack had a nice comb over.

Our 2 friends that were awake were busy in the habitrail. They climbed up onto the habitrail together, rolled the balls and took the dancing scarves out of the box and shook them.

Breakfast:  Kashi’s Blueberry Clusters cereal and fresh blueberries.

Lunch:  Whole grain brown rice with chicken, clementines and peas/fresh cherry tomatoes.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain brown rice cakes with sunflower butter.

Wee Sprouts: Peas.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliaJFP4RXl2duUptkaA

Good Afternoon!

***Please make sure that your child is coming to Wee Friends with a winter coat along with a hat and gloves if needed. We try to go outside as much as we possibly can and we want them comfortable! –thanks!

Here are a few pictures from our day!

Breakfast– Kashi Blueberry Clusters and PPC apples.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded chicken and cheese, PPC pears and clementines, and PPC cucumber/cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Cinnamon raisin bagel with

Wee Sprout– PPC cherry tomatoes/cucumber.

Have a fantastic night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/30

Good Afternoon!

This morning we played peek-a- boo with the big pillow or corner of the wall.

We brought up some small board books for the babies, a few Five Little Monkey stories and Christmas books to get us into the holiday spirit.

Sophia and Emma worked together building with the magnatiles. They both said, “this is a bed.” They then went over and got a baby. The baby fit perfectly. They then added more magnatiles on top for a blanket to cover their baby.

We then headed outside to enjoy some fresh air and our favorite activities with each other or a friend from the other classroom.

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and apples.

Lunch:  Farm fresh scrambled eggs, whole grain wheat bread, blueberries and peas.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain wheat crackers with hummus.

Wee Sprouts:  Peas.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliaFMG0h4oxWRvq06cA

Good Afternoon!

Several art opportunities presented themselves at the table this morning. One was the creation of holiday bulbs to decorate our tree branch. Children chose how they wanted to decorate their bulb; the overwhelming favorite was using glue along with sequins and gold/red glitter!

“Look! I made a dot of glue!”—Lately, children are aware of their bodies and what they’re doing. A friend commented, “Oh..I think my dots a little too big.” We had several conversations during this activity about our intentions and how our bulbs were transforming!

All of the bulbs that were decorated look unique to it’s creator. There are no two bulbs that look alike! Children were enthralled by the glitter and shaking off the excess glitter from our bulbs.

Maxwell and Lulu constructed an extensive road using different sized wooden blocks. They explained that some of the road was wider because the animals were bigger.

When we got outside, we were so happy to see a truck! They were working on the lines along the alley and we watched as they finished up their work. Lately, we’re fascinated with all kinds of trucks; garbage trucks, recycling truck, fed-ex truck, etc.

We hope you had a lovely Wednesday (in Lucy and Anna’s singing voice).

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with cinnamon and PPC blueberries.

Lunch– Scrambled farm fresh eggs with shredded cheese, whole wheat bread, banana/clementines, and PPC cucumbers/carrots.

PM snack– Air popped popcorn and banana.

Wee Sprout– Snap peas.

Have a wonderful night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/29

Good Afternoon!

We started our morning working on many puzzles, looking at a book and building towers with our magnatiles.

Miss Marty went into the basement of the other classroom and brought over some of our favorite Christmas and winter books. We enjoyed having a few of them read to us.

We saw the other classroom leave in wagons to go for a walk. So we pulled out another wagon and Miss Rebekah took us for a walk around the block.  While on our walk we looked around for different things that each one of us noticed. We noticed balls, many pumpkins and leave piles.

While the older friends were outside, Daniel enjoyed a shaving cream sensory activity exploring it in his hands.

Breakfast:  Whole grain Cheerios and pears.

Lunch:  Refried beans and cheese on whole grain wheat tortillas, blueberries/pears and mixed vegetables.

Afternoon Snack:  Toasted whole grain cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Mixed vegetables.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliaBBrwzlgXz-W17X6w

Good Afternoon!

Our pre-k/k group (large group) headed to the library this morning. The knowledge we’re obtaining every time we go continues to grow. Lucy commented, “I want to get a few fairytale books; they’re over here!”. A few friends were very patient: “I know that we’re looking at fiction books right now but I really want to go to the non-fiction section to look at football books!”

After every child picked their four books, we headed over to the table where a few children chose to stay there and look at their books while the rest of the group walked over to the puppet show set-up. As they started, Lulu commented, “Hey guys! At the start of the story, you have to say, “Once upon a time!”. As you can tell, we’re very into fairytale stories AND non-fiction!

Every time we go to the library, we have a discussion in the weehicle about what behaviors we should exhibit at the library. Here’s our main behaviors that we try to remember:

“Make sure you put the book back where you find it!”

“No running.”

“Use quiet voices.”

“Watch out for cars in the parking lot.”

“Don’t scare the librarian.” (this was said very seriously!)

We made sure to exhibit these behaviors as a whole group today at the library. Each member of the group does their job as well as helping their peers with a gentle reminder when needed!

Social Studies: K.2.4 Give examples of how to be a responsible family member or member of a group.

When we were at the library, children that were back at Wee Friends took a walk on this lovely day! This is what they saw:

“I saw bare trees.”

“There were trash cans!”

“We saw dogs barking from a window!”

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Breakfast– Whole grain cheerios and PPC pears.

Lunch– Refried bean and shredded cheese quesadillas on whole wheat tortillas, a mixture of fresh PPC fruit (mango, clementines, pears), and PPC peppers.

PM snack– Goldfish and sunflower seeds.

Wee Sprout– PPC pepper.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/28

Good Afternoon!

Today we did our painting activity at the art easel. We used our sense of hearing as we painted with our brushes. We added bells to our brushes and listened for their sounds as we made our paint strokes on our papers.

We enjoyed looking at our books and working on our puzzles. As we were working on our animal puzzles we put them up to our ears to pretend we were listening to the different animal sounds of the animals in our puzzle board.

Mack and Sophia built with the color view blocks. After they were done building they took turns looking at each other through them.

When it was time to go outside we enjoyed riding the bikes down the hill, going down the slide and working on our bouncing and catching skills with the ball.

Daniel and another friend were working on their fine motor skills by grabbing a shoe lace.

Breakfast:  Whole grain wheat toast with butter and cinnamon and clementines.

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat pasta with chicken, banana and corn.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt and graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZ9b-U29v-g8S-0AoA

Good Afternoon!

**Here’s the first reminder about Christmas break: Wee Friends will be closed Monday, December 25th through Friday, January 5th. We’ll reopen Monday, January 8th!

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This week, we’re talking about the importance of being a responsible member of a group. The term responsibility at this age is often hard to grasp; it’s very self-driven (I do ____).

In large group, we read two stories that talked about forming relationships in school as well as good examples of behavior and not so good examples. Children were quick to point out the examples that were good and the bad (“That’s not being a good friend..”).

As a group, we made a list of how we can be a responsible member in class as well as in our family. We were quick to give examples and wanting our name next to our answer, taking responsibility for our own thoughts!

There is no one specific/right way to parent but one thing that I’m sure we can all agree on is the importance of having children take responsibility for themselves. This article goes into the importance of raising responsible children and the ways that we can get there together!

https://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/responsibility-and-chores/developing-responsibility-in-your-children/

Our morning consisted of getting back into our routine! Long weekends are nice but we were so anxious to get back into the swing of things. Maddie and Lulu discussed art projects that they were starting while Ruby and David (and several other peers) explored the sensory table with moon sand!

We started transitioning our fall decorations into the winter decorations. One of the things that we were most anxious for was the holiday mailbox! Children talked about what a mailman does before making the decision that each friend would get a chance to be the mailman.

We headed toward the sunshine this morning! Explorations occurred as children realized that all of the leaves were missing from the trees and brushes.

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with cream cheese and fresh apples.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with shredded chicken and butter, PPC oranges, and fresh carrots/cauliflower.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts– PPC cauliflower.

Have a lovely evening.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/27

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

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and clementines.

Lunch:  Grilled cheese sandwiches, bananas and peas.

Afternoon Snack:  Hummus on whole grain wheat crackers.

Wee Sprouts:  Peas.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and a great weekend!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZ4w78LYg52flrIE3g