Good Afternoon!

Puzzles. They consumed our morning. One would think puzzles are a simple activity with not much education value..which couldn’t be further from the truth!

While working on puzzles, children are using their hand-eye coordination as well as their fine motor skills. All puzzles require some amount of problem solving: this puzzle piece doesn’t fit here so where does it go?

This morning, children completed puzzles by themselves or by working with a friend, engaging their cooperation and team work skills!

The sun was calling our names this morning! The bike circle was full of different bikes for the first thirty minutes we were outside. It was GREAT to get our bodies moving.

A group of children noticed that the tree in the backyard is almost bare! This started a group effort of collecting all of the leaves and forming a pile for friends to jump on. We did a great job at taking turns and moving our bodies in a positive way.

While the leaf group was working together, Maddie was making ‘red’ and ‘green’ sandwiches for them! She used the bark for the bread: it was sure tasty!

Hope everyone has a relaxing rest of their day!

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and PPC pears.

Lunch– Scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, whole wheat english muffins, kiwi/pears, and PPC cauliflower.

PM snack– Air popped popcorn with butter and apples.

Wee Sprout– PPC cucumber and carrots.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/8

Good Afternoon!

Lulu and Maddie explored the trio blocks this morning by forming seven lines of ten blocks in each row. An extension of their kindergarten sign in was created as Lulu counted by ten’s until she got to 70. We pretended that the rows of blocks kept on going and continued counting: 80, 90, 100!

K.NS.1: Count to at least 100 by ones and tens.

In large group, we read ‘Score One for the Sloths’ written by Helen Lester. Afterwards, we took three library books and studied the author’s name. By working together as a group, we put them in order based on the last name of the author. We talked about how a librarian catalogs books just like we observed yesterday.

K.1.19: Learn and apply knowledge of alphabetical order (first letter) when using a classroom or school library/media center. (2006 standard)

The welcome activity focused on stringing together/matching uppercase and lowercase letters. Franklin was drawn to the activity and quickly started linking letters together. A few things we heard from Franklin:

“This is a ‘U’!”

“Look Grady! G for Grady! G-G-G.” (making the sound of a G)

Lulu joined Franklin on a hunt for magnetic items in our environment. They searched throughout the house, guessing on if an item was magnetic or not before testing it. Our investigative souls came out as we tested almost everything that the eye can see .

Supply a box. The rest will take care of itself!

Breakfast– Chex and PPC starfruit.

Lunch– Chicken avocado salad on whole wheat bread, PPC watermelon, and PPC cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Peanuts and pretzels.

Wee Sprout– PPC peppers.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/7

Good Afternoon!

Our morning started out by building with magnatiles while sitting in the cube!

Then Sophia and Mack started out lining up the cars and trains on the shelf. Then they decided to add animals and people. They had enough to fill an entire shelf!

We then headed to the kitchen for some sensory play with play dough. We used rolling pins to help us flatten out our play dough or poke holes into it using one of the handle ends. We also had some shapes we could press down into it to cut out the different shapes. They were a circle, square and triangle.

We bundled up and headed outside. We ran multiple times around the circle, filled containers with sand in the sandbox and sat on the log to pretend we were on a teeter totter. It was nice to be out and get some sunshine and fresh air.

Breakfast:  Kashi’s blueberry clusters cereal and pears.

Lunch:  Chicken avocado salad on whole wheat bread, corn and pears.

Afternoon Snack:  Grapes and cheddar block cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZFASu7OVO-klGwOaw

Good Afternoon!

Today, we welcomed Miss Kim! We spent the entire morning getting to know her and showing her around the classroom! We are SO excited she’s here.

The PRE-K/K group took a trip to the library this morning. Once we got to the children’s section, each child got to pick out three books to check out. During the exploration phase, children took their time looking for three books that they wanted. A few friends asked where their favorite books were so we went on a hunt for them.

This lead into a discussion about how books are categorized at the library. We all gathered together in the ‘B’ section and a few friends quickly pointed out that they saw a lot of ‘B’s on the book. I told them that the part of the book they were referring to is called the spine of the book. A conversation was started about how the librarian categorizes the books by the author’s last name. So all of the books that we were looking at were written by an author that had a last name that started with ‘B’!

K.1.19: Learn and apply knowledge of alphabetical order (first letter) when using a classroom or school library/media center. (2006 standard)

This intrigued children as they started looking on the spine of their books that they had chosen. Friends compared their books with one another, sharing what letter they had on the spine of their books.

Our favorite part was probably checking out the books that we picked out! It allows us to take responsibility for them which we LOVE!

We had a great library experience where we learned about how librarians categorize the books. Maddie commented, “Well that makes it easier so I know where to find my favorite books!”—that’s the idea

Breakfast– Whole wheat english muffins with peanut butter and banana.

Lunch– Whole wheat noodles with shredded chicken and butter, banana, and fresh carrots/green beans.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with banana.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/6

This morning we were very busy building a house with the blocks so that all of our friends could fit inside. We even brought some cars over to park in front of our house.

We worked on our fine motor skills as we painted beautiful paintings using some Fall colors! We enjoyed ourselves so much that we each painted multiple paintings.

Our friends who were not ready for their naps, were using the dancing scarves, to toss, carry or look through.

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and bananas.

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat pasta with chicken, bananas and peas.

Afternoon Snack: Whole milk yogurt and bananas.

Wee Sprouts: Peas.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZAY4-DgP4m0RVzH_A

A child’s smile is the BEST smile!

Breakfast was Kix and strawberries. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of whole wheat flatbread with mozzarella cheese, grapes, strawberries, and corn. Afternoon snack was cheese crackers and string cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliY8-fJIFIDhDhiFhBg

Have a good weekend!

Amanda

Happy Friday!

**I’ve printed off copies of an article I posted the other day to the blog. The topic of the article is early literacy and titled ‘Sight Words Are So 2016: New Study Finds the Real Key to Early Literacy’. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read it, please feel free to take a copy off of the island in the kitchen to take home .

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On Monday, we will welcome our new teacher, Miss Kim! We had conversations throughout the day of what to expect and how our class is going to look come Monday. When transitions are coming, it’s always beneficial to talk about it before so that everyone’s (including teachers! ) prepared. We are SO excited to meet Miss Kim on Monday and to show her what Wee Friends is all about!

Also, a special thank you to Miss Rebekah for all that she has brought to our classroom this past year! YOU ROCK!

Here’s a look at our Friday.

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and PPC pears.

Lunch– Shredded cheese quesadillas, a mixture of fresh PPC fruit (apple/banana/oranges), and PPC broccoli/cauliflower.

PM snack– Mozzarella string cheese and fresh oranges.

Wee Sprout– PPC peppers and cherry tomatoes.

Have a great weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/3

Just a friendly reminder when dropping off or picking up your child to please park on the side of the street in front of our houses or in the space on the side of our house. Also when you park on the street please allow space for our neighbors to be able to enter and exit the alley safely in front of Wee Friends. If there aren’t any parking spaces available, please use the church parking lot. Thank you!

Breakfast was Kashi’s Blueberry Clusters and pears. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with chicken and cheese, pear, and corn. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with sweet pea butter.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliY41a4R160lD-7Lxzw

Have a good night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

Just a friendly reminder when dropping off or picking up your child to please park on the side of the street in front of our houses or in the space on the side of our house. Also when you park on the street please allow space for our neighbors to be able to enter and exit the alley safely in front of Wee Friends. If there aren’t any parking spaces available, please use the church parking lot. Thank you!

This morning the welcome activity involved sorting and categorizing rocks by light and dark.

Now that we have entered into the month of November we made turkeys. We first traced one of our hands on a piece of paper. We then glued feathers and a googly eye and added legs using markers to make our turkeys.  We each created our own unique turkey!

Our building projects today ranged in size from a small magnatile building, a tall house and long train track.

We even enjoyed some time with our favorite storybooks.

Breakfast: Corn Chex and pears.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with chicken, pears/bananas and red peppers.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese and bananas/pears.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliY1Xjx4AsbtPQu843w

Good Afternoon!

Our PRE-K/K group or large group as we call it, journals everyday for anywhere from ten to twenty minutes depending on the day. This is a time for children to draw and write at their own developmental level, with no pressure to do what the ‘group’ is doing. These kids know that what they’re doing is different than their peer sitting next to them. With our student to teacher ratio, this time is extremely child directed and very one on one driven.

I’ve attached an article that focuses on the literacy component of kindergarten and the start of elementary school: what children are expected to be able to do and how WE can get them there.

This quote from the article encompasses our philosophy almost to a T.

“The best indictor of future success as a reader is actually a child’s ability to use invented spelling as he writes.”

We call this ‘KID SPELLING’  during our group time. This is where children sound out words, writing the letters that they hear. No words are WRONG when children are ‘kid spelling’. There are times where children want to spell using ‘teacher spelling’ but if this is forced onto children before they’re ready, they are not having a meaningful learning experience: ‘e’ sounds like this because an adult is telling me so, not ‘e’ sounds like this because I’m developmentally ready to understand the different sounds an ‘e’ makes.

If you have a chance to read this article, it’s an extremely enlightening article and describes our version of ‘kid spelling’ very well as well as other aspects of early literacy! If you have any questions as how to start implementing this at home with your preschooler, we’d be more than happy to talk about it with you!

https://www.parent.com/sight-words-are-so-2016-new-study-finds-the-real-key-to-early-literacy/

The rest of our day looked like…THIS!

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and oranges.

Lunch– Scrambled eggs with shredded cheese on whole wheat tortillas, banana/oranges, and fresh broccoli.

PM snack– Blue corn chips and refried beans.

Wee Sprout– PPC cherry tomatoes.

Have a terrific evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/1