*Reminders: Pajama Day is this Thursday, March 24th! In addition, WF will be closed on Friday, March 25th for Good Friday.

Today started off with several rounds of UNO. This card game naturally promotes number recognition and taking turns. Many of the children were able to follow the rules of the game or understand directions such as “put down a red card or a number 4.” We also counted the number of cards we had in our hands each round!

Eren asked for the “ramp things” to be brought up from the basement. After determining what exactly he meant by “ramp things,” these toy ramps and corresponding cars were added to the environment. Children spent lots of time exploring them today—having races and making sounds to match the cars’ movement!

The art table was also filled with activity today. Lately, the most-asked for art material is the sequins! Friends compared their sequin shapes, negotiated trades of popular sequins, and used glue to place their sequins in a variety of patterns.

Elizabeth incorporated her sequins into a pop-card she made for someone special in her life!

Kindergarten: In kindergarten today we began working on one of this week’s FABs, K.NS.3: Find the number that is one more than or one less than any whole number up to 20. We played a version of war/memory aptly called “one more, one less.” Each player picks up a card from the deck and then tries to find a card that is either one more or one less. The tricky part is that all the cards are turned over! This game provided ample opportunity for discussions about greater than/less than and a chance to practice finding numbers one more than or one less than quickly.

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Whole wheat English muffin with cream cheese and fresh apples. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with chicken, mixed vegetables and fresh oranges. Snack: Organic whole milk yogurt and grapes.

Link to the photo album: WF 3/21/2016

Have a great day! –Jessica

Please note: Wee Friends is closed 3/25 for Good Friday.

Also, we may have another stomach bug going around. Symptoms are diarrhea, loss of appetite, and low fever. 

We hope you have a great weekend and enjoy the photos!

Breakfast was Cheerios and bananas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat bread with hummus, bananas, and carrots. Afternoon snack was pretzels with string cheese.

Have a good night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!82890&authkey=!ACUBz1Tj98Ggq9I&ithint=folder%2cJPG

Happy Friday! Today Wee Friends has been filled with art and music. Throughout our day children have gathered at the art table to work on a variety of creations made with paper and markers. Some students scribbled and drew in developmentally appropriate pre-writing, while others worked on their kid-spelling. Whatever their work was, they took pride in creating something all on their own!

Luke and Rosemary gathered at the piano to explore both the keys and piano music. They relished the sounds they made, both soft and loud. Next step—to work on using gentle fingers versus heavy hands to play the piano! 

Ms. Melinda also led a large group of friends in song and dance. Children of all ages did the hokey pokey with great enthusiasm!

Head, shoulders, knees and toes was also a popular song. We love getting to move our bodies around inside! Songs like these are great for working on body awareness and following directions.

Kindergarten: Today’s kindergarten activity was a natural extension of what our students were already working on/interested in. Several friends were interested in wrestling in habitrail and knew that they needed a teacher to supervise this activity. Before this could begin, however, we talked about the rules we would need to agree on before wrestling. Elizabeth eagerly spearheaded this project and got paper and pencil to write down everyone’s ideas for rules. Together the children kid-spelled all of their rules, ranging from “no biting” to “sta on rg” (stay on rug). Next, we hung up the rules in the back for easy reference during our gross motor movement!

Wee Sprouts: Cucumbers. Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with no-nut butter and bananas. Lunch: Whole wheat tortillas with hummus, fresh broccoli/cauliflower, and bananas/pears. Snack: Cottage cheese and pears/oranges.

Link to the photo album: WF 3/18/2016

Have a great weekend! –Jessica

We had such a great morning outside! There was bike riding, climbing, running, and playing in the pebbles and sand. Our friends love their outside time and we love watching them have fun!

Breakfast was toast with butter and oranges. Wee sprouts was green beans. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with cheese, bananas, and green beans. Afternoon snack was rice cakes with sweet pea butter.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!82755&authkey=!AHZENxFBqnU0Dyc&ithint=folder%2cJPG

 

 

Kindergarten: The kindergartener’s sign-in this morning was a little more involved than usual. Their task: write down a recipe for Irish Soda Bread. Daniel joined in on the kid-spelling and he, Elliott and Elizabeth took turns writing ingredients. Many words and their letters were heard, such “flr” for flour, “shgr” for sugar and “sat” for salt. After they finished writing down the recipe, they counted the number of ingredients!

 

Next, many Wee Friends accepted the invitation to come make Irish Soda bread. We took turns measuring and pouring ingredients while often checking our recipe to see what we needed to add to our dough next.

Elizabeth had the idea to make our bread in the shape of a shamrock. The final result was delicious!

Outside, many friends worked together to fill up a variety of buckets with rocks. Their goal—to build a house! It was a very involved process with many friends working in the same space simultaneously.

Here, Elliott outlines the plan for the house in sand:

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios and fresh apples. Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with quinoa and shredded beef, broccoli/cauliflower/carrots, and bananas/oranges. Snack: Homemade apple crisp and Irish soda bread.

Link to the photo album: WF 3/17/2016

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! –Jessica

We had a musical morning! We listened to silly songs while playing with pianos, drums, and shakers. Then we sung our own songs and danced!

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone that brought in family pictures! Our friends loved them and spent a lot of time today looking through the albums. There were big smiles and happy “mama’s” and “dada’s”. Ruby gave the picture of her cats a big kiss!

Breakfast was Cheerios and oranges. Wee sprouts was mixed vegetables. Lunch consisted of farm fresh eggs with tortilla, blueberries, and mixed vegetables. Afternoon snack was crackers with cream cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!82513&authkey=!AKnNdmP-346Z8ws&ithint=folder%2cJPG

This morning began with an invitation to explore our colored links. Many children chose to spend time at the table with these materials! An open ended activity like the links allows children to work at their own developmental level. For example, most of our younger friends shook the links around, hearing the loud clacks they made against the tray and feeling the links with their fingers. It’s all about the sensory experience.

Our older preschoolers worked their fine motor skills and figured out how to connect and disconnect the links. For these friends, the links were an opportunity to build and create.

Housekeeping was busy today! Tate spent time cooking, while Lucy had a plethora of animals and eggs to take care of. 

Outside children started their own self-directed projects independently. A group of friends sat on the sidewalk and worked on tearing up sticks to make “little wood chips”. They collected the fruits of their labor in a cup!

In the sandbox, another group of children worked with the large sand bucket, shoveling sand in and out of the container. This job kept them occupied for a long while. There was lots of discussion and conversation about how and where to shovel—practicing social skills through play!

Kindergarten: Today’s kindergarten work was presented during large group. Last week we introduced the concept of ending punctuation and yesterday began talking about verbs. Today we put those concepts together to make some silly sentences! Children randomly chose some verbs and nouns. Then we put in some extra words and punctuation to come up with some silly sentences like “The chocolate screamed for joy.” and “The mom giggled at the stinky cat.” Needless to say, there was lots of laughter during large group time today  

 

Wee Sprouts: Pea pods. Breakfast: Hot wheat cereal with fresh pears. Lunch: Cheesy scrambled eggs in whole wheat tortillas, carrots/peppers, and fresh strawberries/apples. Snack: Homemade popcorn with butter and fresh blueberries.

Link to the photo album: WF 3/16/2016

Hope you get to enjoy the sunshine this afternoon! –Jessica

Our friends ran straight to the slides when we went outside this morning! They never get tired of them!

Anna climbed to the top of the log house. She’s always so proud of doing it all by herself!

Maggie and Franklin had fun playing with a basket of puff balls in the kitchen. Franklin would fill the basket with a few puffs and then laugh as he tipped the basket over and dumped them in his lap. Maggie enjoyed feeling their soft texture and seeing the different shapes and colors.

Breakfast was Corn Chex and bananas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with turkey and cream cheese, strawberries, blueberries, and mixed vegetables. Afternoon snack was crackers and string cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: WWF – 2016-03-15

Happy Tuesday!

How our morning investigation got started:

Trays were put out on the table this morning with different magnets ready for exploration!

This got our juices flowing.

So..

A group of peers grabbed clipboards and went around the environment in search of magnetic items! Children marked on their clipboard if certain items were magnetic or not magnetic.

We were interested to see what was magnetic and what wasn’t! We all definitely had our exploration hats on today!

Since it was a nice morning, we decided to do a little weeding. A few friends jumped at the chance to help. As they got leaves and such off the ground, they put it into the yard waste bin.

We were all about the hard work today!

We hope everyone is able to enjoy this beautiful weather today!

Wee Sprouts: Cucumbers.

Breakfast: Quaker Oatmeal Squares and strawberries.

Lunch: Turkey and cream cheese tortillas, carrots/snap peas, and oranges.

PM Snack: Whole wheat toast with butter and cinnamon.

Link to pictures: WF 3/15

Please note: Wee Friends is closed March 25th for Good Friday.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Enjoy today’s photos!

Breakfast was whole wheat bagels with cream cheese, blueberries, and strawberries. Wee sprouts was green beans. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce, oranges, and green beans. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and raisins.

Have a good night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!82025&authkey=!AOKKs3sXMRZWgXg&ithint=folder%2cJPG