Today friends gathered for several rounds of one of WF’s favorite games: UNO! Besides being a lot of fun for friends, playing UNO together gives friends practice taking turns and using critical thinking skills.

 

There are a lot of choices to make in this game (Do I have a number that matches the deck? Do I have a card that is the same color as the deck? What do I do if I don’t have a matching card?) It also provides ample time to explore numbers. For example, above Melinda explains how UNO cards use a line to differentiate between the 6 and the 9!

Today friends also tackled a number of different puzzles, working independently and together.

 

Lately, our farm, fire station and castle have been getting a lot of use from friends. While sometimes they use the castle as a castle and the farm as the farm, more often than not they reimagine the structure to whatever suits their fancy! Today it was lots of houses for cars.

 

Kindergarten: This week our focus in math has been about determining greater than/less than/equal to. Our kindergarteners are quite good at figuring out the greater number in a group of objects or out of a pair of numbers. Now we’re practicing using the language of greater than/less than/equal to consistently!

Wee Sprouts: Tomatoes. Breakfast: Whole grain oatmeal with fresh blueberries. Lunch: Whole wheat bagel pizzas with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese, carrots, clementines and bananas. Snack: Whole wheat crackers and hummus.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/10/2016

Drive safe and stay warm tonight! –Jessica

Enjoy these photos of habitrail fun!

Breakfast was Corn Chex and apples. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with refried beans and cheese, bananas, and corn. Afternoon snack was toasted whole wheat bagels with cream cheese. Wee sprouts was peas.

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1Q5Xa34

Good Afternoon!

*With the winter weather approaching, please make sure you check your email and/or phone for any delays or cancellations. Stay safe!

**At pickup, please pick up your childs artwork to take home! –Thanks!

Children were invited to the art table where they had the opportunity to create a paper mache heart. Every kid created one with their own twist on it.

Some friends used multiple colors of paper to complete their heart. Another friend used marker along with the square pieces of tissue paper. A few friends used one specific color to fill in the heart.

Our new creations are back in the habitrail area for everyones viewing pleasure!

Friends took to reading stories throughout the morning. ‘Ten Little Speckled Frogs’ is our favorite as of late!

Using different materials, we created tracks, towers, and all sorts of different creations. We heard a lot of talking and conversations going on while friends were playing cooperatively.

Wee Sprouts: peppers.

Breakfast: cheerios and blueberries.

Lunch: hummus on whole wheat bread, oranges, and green beans.

PM Snack: homemade apple cinnamon oatmeal muffins and block cheddar cheese.

Have a good evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 2/9

*Reminder: Pre-conference forms are due this Friday, February 12th. Thank you!

With a few of our friends out spending time with family, we’ve had a fairly quiet day here at Wee Friends! Friends spent the day getting deeply involved in their work, whether that was creating patterns with the unifix cubes or building imaginary worlds out of legos. There was lots of cooperation and collaboration!

The stencils were brought out today at the art table. Dinosaurs were the stencils of choice! Stencils really challenge children’s fine motor skills, as they have to work out how to hold the stencil steady on the paper and at the same time use their other hand to trace.

Kindergarten: This week’s literacy focus is on important textual elements such as characters, settings and events. We started off this morning with a discussion of our favorite stories and their characters (who the story is about) and setting (where the story takes place). Next, we kid-spelled the main character and setting of our stories. Elliott’s favorite story had a main character of a king and took place in a kasl [castle]!

Wee Sprouts: Pea pods. Breakfast: Toasted whole wheat bread with butter and fresh pears. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with black beans, carrots and apples. Snack: Organic whole milk yogurt and granola.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/8/16

Happy Monday! –Jessica

Our friends had fun with rings this morning!

Through practice, Anna has become quite good at making the rings spin. She experimented spinning the rings on different surfaces in the classroom and discovered that it’s tricky to do on the carpet.

Ruby gathered as many rings as she could. She thought they made fabulous necklaces!

Franklin made the discovery that the rings are flexible! He had fun bending them into different shapes.

Breakfast was Chex and bananas. Lunch consisted of rice with shredded chicken, bananas, and corn. Afternoon snack was cheddar block cheese with crackers.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1Pc0T1M

Today many friends were engaged in cooperative play. Animals in the fire station, big yellow car tracks and “spy houses” were all over habitrail!

With all of the talk about the upcoming Valentine holiday, friends spontaneously decided to work on creating cards for friends. They were full of drawings and friends’ names. Sometimes a trip to a friend’s cubby is needed—that way you know how to spell their name!

Like always, our day was also filled with books!

Wee Sprouts: Cucumbers. Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with cream cheese and fresh pears. Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with quinoa and chicken, steamed corn and fresh pears/apples. Snack: Tomatoes and blue corn chips.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/5/2016

Have a great weekend! –Jessica

Our friends love the classroom story area! The teachers read books to the children every day, but our friends love to pick books for themselves, too.

Ruby asked to play with the soft slide this afternoon. She had fun climbing up and down the steps and sitting at the very top.

One of Franklins favorite toy is the wooden people. He does a great job of matching and placing them in the cups!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and blueberries. Lunch consisted of tortilla with turkey and cheese, bananas, and mixed vegetables. Afternoon snack was graham crackers and string cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/20cAq7g

Yesterday afternoon, the train tracks were traded out for our set of yellow car tracks. Ever since, many friends have sought to create with these toys we haven’t seen in a while! Many sprawling tracks were built across the music rug. The differing heights of all the pieces required friends to really work together to make the tracks fit.

This morning friends helped make some homemade mod podge (just glue and water) for a special Valentine’s Day project. Some added glitter made our art pop!

Friends also gathered around the round table to play one of the Wee Friender’s favorite games, the category game. In this game a variety of objects are hidden and friends must guess both what they are and what category they belong in (transportation, food, household items, etc.) This time our visiting friend Emma described each object for friends to guess!

Today the easel was in full operation as well!

Kindergarten: The kindergarteners continued their work in sorting/categorizing. One of today’s activities involved sorting a collection of bugs into groups based on different characteristics (e.g. happy or sad bugs based on facial expression). After sorting, each friend counted the number of bugs in each group and recorded the answer on paper. Great practice writing numbers as well as sorting. Addi decided to join in too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wee Sprouts: Mini sweet peppers. Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios with grapes and blueberries. Lunch: Whole wheat tortillas with turkey and shredded cheese, carrots, clementines and blackberries. Snack: Pistachios and graham crackers.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/4/2016

Have a terrific Thursday! –Jessica

Today was a busy day of playing with shaving cream…

Trying on hats…

Building with waffle blocks…

And exploring under the habitrail!

Breakfast was whole grain oatmeal and bananas. Lunch consisted of farm fresh eggs, whole wheat flat bread, bananas, and peas. Afternoon snack was crackers with sweet pea butter.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1Piicff

*Attached to daily sheets today is information about our Valentine’s Day celebration! We will be exchanging valentines on Friday, February 12th.

Today we have been thoroughly engaged in a variety of work—puzzles, shapes, building tall towers and the workbench:

Books were read ALL day:

And we played outside!

Kindergarten: This week we have been working on K.DA.1: Identify, sort and classify objects by size, number, and other attributes. Identify objects that do not belong to a particular group and explain the reasoning used. Being able to sort and classify is an important foundational math skill. Through sorting, children understand that objects are alike and different and can be organized into groups. Practice with sorting and classifying at this age prepares them for future mathematical work!

Today our kindergarteners worked on sorting a group of objects into two different groups. For example, Elliott had to decide whether a given object was used in winter or summer. When he came to a hat, he said that it could be both summer or winter! But that the hat in the picture was a winter hat (knitted beanie), so he kid-spelled “hat” in the winter column. Way to explain your reasoning, Elliott!

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Whole grain oatmeal and grapes. Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese on whole grain flatbread, fresh broccoli and watermelon. Snack: Homemade popcorn with butter and fresh blueberries.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/3/2016

Have a great night. –Jessica