Good Afternoon!

Fall farm time has come around again!

FARM GROUPS–

FARM GROUP A: Riley, Maddie, Lulu, Lucy, Max

FARM GROUP B: Grady, Anna, Brycen, David, Nina, Elijah

 

FARM GROUP A We will try to go once a week (weather and farm permitting); our goal is Monday mornings but our fall back day will be Thursday. As of right now, our first farm trip will be Monday, September 11th.

FARM GROUP B will go one time this season. Right now, we’re planning on Monday, September 25th. If this changes, we’ll let you know!

**Forrest, Chloe, Ruby, Emma, and Franklin will need to be driven/chaperoned by a parent if you wish for them to go with FARM GROUP B on their trip on Monday, September 25th.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

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Our FAB’s for the upcoming week are:

Social Studies: K.2.1 Give examples of people who are community helpers (inside the classroom and outside the classroom) and describe how they help us.

Social Studies: K.2.3 Give examples of classroom and school rules and explain how each helps us.

In large group, we read two stories that focused of a specific community helper: firefighter! We learned that firefighters live at the fire station when they’re working. Several items that firefighters wear were also layed out in the story. There isn’t just one type of firetruck; there are several, including the pumper truck! The following questions was presented:

“If we didn’t have firefighters to help us, what would happen?”

-“Stuff would burn and people may die!”

We talked about how important firefighters are to our community and how dangerous their job can be.

Children were invited to the art table this morning to paint with a vegetable that we picked from our garden; an overgrown zucchini! Miss Melinda cut the zucchini into circles and friends picked the color of paint they wanted to paint with!

We came up with a list of other materials we can paint with besides paint brushes. Friends shouted out ‘sponge’ and ‘hands’ to name a few.

Maddie focused on pattern blocks this morning. She picked several pattern cards and completed the pattern using colored blocks. These pattern blocks are quite tricky as the blocks have to be put in a certain way! Maddie shouted, “I did it! I think I’ll do another one!”

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with butter and PPC grapes.

Lunch– Whole wheat noodles with kidney beans, PPC pears/blackberries, and fresh carrots/snap peas.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with banana/blackberries.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 8/28

Mack, Sophia, and Emma spent most of their inside time this morning taking care of baby dolls. They each found a blanket for their babies to wrap them up with. They all rocked, carried, and burped their baby dolls. Emma said her baby was sad and gave her a big hug. The girls also set up a diaper changing station and worked hard at getting the diapers on their dolls.

Breakfast was Cheerios and banana. Wee sprout was mixed veggies. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with red beans, oranges, and corn. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and banana.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliNQWK800o0bfMk8yrQ

Have a good night!

Amanda

Happy Friday!

This morning, Maddie and Lulu took several magazines and looked through them. Using scissors, they cut out any face that they saw. After getting a good collection of faces, they took glue and made a collage. They engaged in a collaboration by creating a collage together and talking about the faces they were cutting out.

In large group, we looked at the collage that Maddie and Lulu made. We talked about the faces and discussed what we saw that was similar and different. To go along with this, we read two books; ‘Little Blue and Little Yellow’ and ‘Whistle for Willie’.

“They have different color faces but they’re all the same; people!”

Social Studies: K.3.6 Identify and compare similarities and differences in families, classmates, neighbors and neighborhoods, and ethnic and cultural groups.

We had a great Friday! We hope you did too.

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and PPC pears.

Lunch– Shredded cheese on whole wheat flatbread, banana/pear, and mixed vegetables.

PM snack– Pretzels and block cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots.

Have a terrific weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 8/25

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast was Kix and banana. Wee sprout was carrots. Lunch consisted of whole wheat flatbread with cheese, oranges, and carrots. Afternoon snack was cheese crackers and string cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliNJ8WFXP7qNUyLCN3A

Have a great weekend!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

One of the most meaningful activities that children partake in is journaling. Large group journals daily; small group children can journal whenever they’d like but have no set time to journal.

Our large group consists of four and five year olds. All five of our friends are at different stages in their language development. A few children are working on the formation of letters and matching the letter with a sound (mostly consonants). When they hear the sounds, a teacher dictates what they’re saying. A couple of our older friends are kid spelling which means that they’re hearing sounds in given words and writing what they hear. For instance, ‘friend’ may look like ‘frnd’. MOST children hear consonants first before hearing any vowels. This is completely normal and an important part of development! We are always excited to have a time to draw what’s in our heads or just something we’re thinking about. Putting words to our pictures makes it that much more meaningful. OUR WORDS MATTER.

The following attachment goes into the specific of handwriting and the various stages that children go through!

http://www.mecfny.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/StagesofWritinghandout.pdf

 

The rest of our morning focused around ourselves; drawing our portraits and coloring our hands that we made yesterday.

A song comes to mind; ‘The itsy bitsy spider…’

Breakfast– Kashi Blueberry Clusters and banana.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded chicken, corn on the cob from PPC, and PPC grapes/banana.

PM snack– Wheat thins and sunflower seeds.

Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumbers.

Have a great evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 8/24

Our friends enjoyed their time in the sandbox this morning. Mack and Rose played with the trucks and shovels, and Sophia and Emma took turns jumping from the tree stumps.

Miss Rebekah started a game of ring around the Rosie with the big kids, who very nicely let Sophia and Emma join in.

Mack climbed the log house multiple times. Each time he reached the top, he proudly said, “I did it!”

Breakfast was toast with sweet pea butter and strawberries. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with chicken, grapes, and peas. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with cream cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliNJCmc4jwT8A25xsQQ

Have a good night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

About three weeks ago, I wrote a ‘transition’ blog about possible transitions in the upcoming weeks. Well, the time is here. We have a new teacher in Miss Hannah who is spending a couple hours with us a week, a few new friends, kindergarten status for three of our children, and mommy’s and daddy’s back to their regular work schedule. While this is temporary, our goal is to make sure that each of our children here feel safe and loved while knowing that they can have the best time at school and still expect mommy and daddy to pick them up at the end of the day. Our communication line is ALWAYS open and our main goal each day is to set these children up to succeed!

I’ve attached an article about ‘first day jitters’. While it’s no one’s ‘first day’ technically, it gives some good tools to help children come out of the ‘anxious transition phase’. Sometimes, changes that we as adults feel are minor, matter a lot to children so making sure we’re sensitive to their feelings and emotions is crucial!

http://www.naeyc.org/yc/article/first_day_jitters

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“Share our similarities; celebrate our differences.”

-M. Scott Peck

In large group, we read the story ‘The Family Book’. Throughout the story, we learned about families and the different variations that can occur within a family. Some families look alike, some look different. A friend popped up and said, “Like Choco from yesterday’s book; Choco didn’t look like her mommy.”

After the story, we made a family graph using tally marks. We discussed tally marks and what one tally mark meant. Each friend went through the different family members and told the group how many they have in their family. When we were done, we realized that no one has a sister! Lulu commented, “If Addi were here, she could say that she has a sister!” We found two columns in which everyone had a tally mark; mommy and daddy!

This morning, Miss Melinda played a game titled ‘same and different’. First, we compared Emma’s cat from home and Chloe’s hippo. As a group, we talked about the similarities and differences between the two animals. The similarities that we came up with were two eyes, a mouth, two ears, and they’re both stuffed animals! The differences were that they were different colors and different sizes.

After we were done comparing the stuffed animals, Miss Melinda gave the group a job to do; go find two items that are the same and different at the same time!

Chloe found two spiders. They were exactly the same so we couldn’t find anything that was different.

Grady brought two items from the magnetic bin in the science area. We found out that one is magnetic while the other isn’t as well as being different colors. We couldn’t find anything that was the same.

Anna brought back two balls from the magnet bin. Someone shouted, “They’re both balls so they’re the same”. While trying to think of how they were different, a friend said, “They’re different colors; one is red and one is blue.”

We used our hands today to create cutouts for an art project tomorrow. Stay tuned..

Breakfast– Malt-O-Meal and PPC strawberries.

Lunch– Homemade french toast casserole, PPC cantaloupe/strawberries, and fresh carrots.

PM snack– Blue corn chips with refried beans.

Wee Sprout– Cherry tomatoes from our garden.

Have a great night.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 8-/23

Welcome Zoe to Wee Wee! We’re so excited you’re here!

We started our day with puzzles…

Played in the gross motor area together…

Went down the slides…

Stopped to smell the flowers…

And did some impressive climbing!

Breakfast was Cheerios and banana. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of homemade French toast casserole, strawberries, and peas. Afternoon snack was strawberries and cheddar cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliNEZ1FKcyoWKskwLrw

Have a good night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

During large group, we incorporated our FAB for the week by reading the book, ‘A Mother for Choco’. In this book, ‘Choco’ who is a yellow bird, tries to find herself a mother since she doesn’t have one. After going up to many different animals to see if they’re her mother, she finally meets Mrs. Bear. Now Mrs. Bear looks nothing like Choco but takes her in and becomes her mother anyways.

Afterwards, many friends commented, “But Choco looks nothing like Mrs. Bear!” This started a conversation about how some families don’t have the same physical characteristics but they’re still family! We brainstormed words or thoughts that come to our minds when we hear the word ‘family’. Many of us had the same thoughts about what a family represents.

Social Studies: K.3.6 Identify and compare similarities and differences in families, classmates, neighbors and neighborhoods, and ethnic and cultural groups.

This morning we worked on an art activity that helped us compare the similarities and differences in our families to go along with our FAB for the week.

Our creativity was on display in our building structures that we built with many of our different building blocks.

We explored the big sunflower in the garden. We noticed how big it has grown and how heavy the top is, which has caused it to droop down. It is down far enough for us to be able to see it a little closer and feel the flower petals and seeds in the middle. We even had enough cherry tomatoes that were ripe enough to pick to fill a bowl!

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and banana.

Lunch:  Avocado chicken salad on whole grain wheat bread/tortillas, banana and peppers.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain wheat bagel with cream cheese and banana/mango.

Wee Sprouts:  Cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliNAOmcMFyheSW1S8ow

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and oranges. Wee sprout was mixed veggies. Lunch consisted of whole wheat chicken avocado sandwiches, strawberries, and mixed veggies. Afternoon snack was toasted whole wheat bagels with cream cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliM9fP-J0Mh45laTbCg

Have a good night!

Amanda