Good Afternoon!

*Just a reminder, that GROUP B is going to the farm tomorrow which includes Tate, Anna, Rosemary, Lucy, and Max. We’re aiming to leave around 9:45 so please have your child here prior to that! Thanks!

*I’ll send out another reminder next week but we’re planning to have a PAJAMA DAY on FRIDAY, MAY 27TH.

We want to send a BIG Happy Birthday shout out to Tate! All the way from being three months at Wee Wee to now turning three years old! Wow how fast time flies.

The welcome activity that was made available for children this morning was marbles and ice cube trays. There were many different ways that friends manipulated this open ended activity.

Maddie shouted, “Look! I sorted them all by color into the right place!”

Jackson and Eren helped Miss Melinda this morning retrieve some tent caterpillars that had taken up residence in one of our small trees outside. We brought them in and they are currently in an aquarium up in the front science area. We’re looking forward to watching them grow!

While the swimmers were off at the Y, the rest of us made homemade frozen yogurt cups with fresh fruit!

Everyone was a big help. Friends enjoyed contributing to our afternoon snack, which was a big hit!

In Kindergarten today:

We continued to dissect the calendar. Specifically, we talked about the days of the week. We split the days up into ‘at home days’ and ‘school’ days. Of course, the exception was brought up such as when we have a three day weekend!

Our journaling time is beneficial on many levels. Lately, friends have been trying their best to use kid spelling which allows children to build the skills they need to decipher between consonants and vowels.

Breakfast– kix and blueberries.

Lunch– hummus on tortilla, PPC grapes, and cherry tomatoes/cucumbers.

PM snack– homemade frozen yogurt cups with fresh blueberries and strawberries.

Wee Sprout– cherry tomatoes.

Have a terrific evening!

Link to pictures: WF 5/17

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast was Kix and pears. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with hummus, grapes, and corn. Afternoon snack was toasted whole wheat bagels with cream cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!90086&authkey=!AICPwKWol8zqw60&ithint=folder%2cJPG

Our friends loved the sunny weather this morning!

Sophia started off scooping and pouring in the sandbox, but then decided to go exploring!

Maggie loves the little bikes! She loves to pull and push them around the yard with her. Then she likes to sit and watch the kids go by!

Franklin hung out in the pebble area. He found some logs to climb over and checked out what the older children were doing inside the log house. Then he and Miss Marty played on the slide!

Ruby looked inside all of the buckets in the sandbox to see what was in them. She found quite a few buckets with rain water that she splashed her hands in! Then she joined her friends in playing on the teeter totters and bikes!

Breakfast was whole wheat toast with butter and cinnamon and pears. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with red beans, oranges, and broccoli. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and grapes.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!90002&authkey=!AFVq-YstrIAeBbU&ithint=folder%2cJPG

Happy Monday!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

**Thanks to Tate’s family for our afternoon treat today! His birthday is tomorrow but we were able to have his birthday treat today! (yummy applesauce that was a hit!)

As a child said this morning, it was a “teacher extravaganza!”

Miss Rebekah started at Wee Friends today! We enjoyed getting to know her and for her to get to know us!

Miss Katelyn started her summer practicum this morning. She’s a student at IUSB and is going to be with us through the middle of June!

 

This week’s fab is as follows: K.1.5 Explain that calendars are used to represent days of the week and months of the years.

During large group, we read ‘A Child’s Calendar’ which introduced the months of the year. We started out by becoming familiar with calendar language. Throughout the week, we will dive deeper into why we use a calendar and the important information that it tells us!

Puzzles were requested all throughout the morning. There were varying degrees on difficulty with each puzzle and our older friends were great at lending a hand if needed.

Feathers were of interest this morning so Miss Melinda set up an activity where children could come to the art table to paint with the feathers. We experimented with different parts of the feather as well as using the feathers in our artwork!

Breakfast– whole wheat bagel and grapes.

Lunch– whole wheat pasta with red beans, oranges, and carrots.

PM snack– Tate’s birthday applesauce with block cheese.

Wee Sprouts– carrots, broccoli, cauliflower.

Have a lovely night!

Link to pictures: WF 5/16

Emma has discovered a love for the teeter-totter! She was laughing and saying “Weee!” the whole time she was on it!

Franklin got a game of peek-a-boo started this afternoon! He and his friends all giggled together when he popped out from the other side of the curtains. Ruby and Sophia each grabbed their own curtain and joined in on the game!

Sophia spent a lot of time in the dress up section this week. Today she found a scarf she liked and tried it on a few different ways!

Breakfast was Chex and pears. Wee sprouts was broccoli. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with hummus, grapes, and broccoli. Afternoon snack was mozzarella and cheddar cheese, blueberries, and grapes.

Have a great weekend!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!89867&authkey=!AJZzOC2SOuh5Gy0&ithint=folder%2cJPG

Happy Friday!

Choices. Our day is filled with them. Children have their favorite spots and activities, whether it’s snuggling up with a friend or sitting on a teachers lap to read a story.

Also, having the free reign to get down a puzzle, coins, or a discovery box.

Our friends are continuing to acquire a special skill which is regulating their bodies. We have certain places throughout the environment that are considered ‘alone’ spaces. When children need some down time or just simply want to be alone, they know they can go to these places.

We have the option to discover new things; to learn at our own pace. The exploration of coins and the manipulation of Montessori numbers occurred today at the round table.

When a child or a group of children show interest in a topic or activity, we go full speed ahead.

Our large group learned the coin song this afternoon. Whenever coins are brought up in the classroom setting, we can get this song out to remind us about the certain coins and the properties of each coin!

We had a fantastic day. Sounds like the weekend should be interesting for some of you!

Have a GREAT weekend!

Breakfast– rice cakes with hummus and PPC peaches.

Lunch– hummus on tortillas, PPC watermelon, and broccoli/cauliflower.

PM snack– pretzels and cottage cheese.

Wee Sprout– green pepper and snap peas.

Link to pictures: WF 5/13

Enjoy the photos!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and bananas. Wee sprouts was carrots. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with cheese, blueberries, and carrots. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with sweet pea butter. Afternoon Wee sprouts was green beans.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!89669&authkey=!ANbAAhOfECoF9-k&ithint=folder%2cJPG

*We’ve been hearing from many children about planned vacations for the summer. If you know the set dates for any vacations, we’d greatly appreciate getting those dates so we can put it on our calendar . Thanks!

Our day started by assessing children’s knowledge of coins. There’s been conversation that’s taken place this week about coins and money in general. I don’t know about our group of parents but I know that I mostly use a card to purchase items. In our society now, how often are coins and money used? We started with the foundational knowledge of coins and what they’re used for. From there, we built onto that knowledge.

In Kindergarten today:

We continued on investigating our fab for the week: K.4.1 Explain that people work to earn money to buy the things they want. Introduce money names and values.

Elliott became interested in the many differences in each coin. So, we started to do a coin rub activity using colored pencils. We found the perfect paper and Elliott got to work. He split the paper into four sections for each of the coins. He said, “We’ve got a process going here!” We sharpened seven different colors to see what color worked the best!

Using kid spelling, he wrote the names of each of the coins at the top of the paper. While he was in the midst of the activity, we observed the coins he was using. I pointed out that each coin has a date on it, the year that it was made. The penny that we were using was made in the year 1985 to which I pointed out, “This penny was made before I was born!”

We discussed the terms ‘heads’ and ‘tails’ and observed the difference between the two.

The final product! We’ll use it tomorrow in large group as we’re going to learn a song about coins.

In large group, we brought back our grocery list from yesterday. After going to the grocery last night, I wrote down all of the prices for the items that we had come up with. Our total was $23.50. The question, “Is this a lot of money?” was proposed which brought about the conversation of “What is a lot of money?”

After picking out a couple of poems in ‘Pigs and Noodles’, we had our Thursday Poetry Corner. Elliott suggested the title, ‘Pigs on the Run’. The story just took off from there .

The geoboards were brought out this morning where children worked at their level using the rubber bands and boards. We didn’t get to capture a picture but Maxwell quickly found out that when you stretch the rubber band, it tends to spring back at you!

The geoboards allowed for differentiated instruction. Our younger friends worked on their fine motor skills and simply put the rubber bands on the geoboard while our older friends used the rubber bands to create patterns.

WALK? WE GET TO GO FOR A WALK?!

It was a gorgeous morning for a walk. We gathered up the troop and started heading down the alley. We took a vote. Should we go this way or that way?

We smelled flowers.

We held hands with a friend.

We picked many dandelions and saw a ‘bridal vail’ bush.

On the last leg of our walk, we stopped at the church down the road. Every day at noon, the church bell rings to let us know that it’s time to clean up so we can go inside for lunch. We observed the bell and many questions were asked such as, “How does it ring?” Here were a couple of the thoughts we had:

“Maybe some stands up there and rings it.”

“An alarm is probably set for it to turn on.”

“Someone pulls that rope.”

Breakfast– corn chex and PPC peaches.

Lunch– brown rice with shredded cheese, snap peas, and PPC watermelon.

PM snack– triscuits, blackberries, and sunflower seeds.

Wee Sprouts– red pepper and carrots.

We had a FABULOUS. We hope you did too!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 5/12

Hello, everyone! Today we had a musical morning…

An indoor sandbox…

And spaces to explore in the fresh air!

Breakfast was whole grain oatmeal and bananas. Wee sprouts was green beans. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortillas with turkey and cheese, peaches, and broccoli. Afternoon snack was graham crackers and string cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A58B8C61670EC2D4!89499&authkey=!AJup8s2fTqxlbrQ&ithint=folder%2cJPG

Good Afternoon!

While the older group was off at the farm, Rosemary, Tate, Lucy, Anna and Max helped me make lunch! We set the table and started lunch prep together! They gathered around the island where we made our sandwiches and prepared the veggies! What BIG helpers we have!

We headed outside where much of the morning was spent in the sandbox or searching around the outside environment for any sort of bug! When we saw the wee-hicle come down the alley, we got BIG smiles on our faces .

In Kindergarten:

We read two stories that focused on the grocery/buying items angle. Friends had to think about the ONE thing they would buy at the grocery store. We wrote everyone’s responses down and I’m going to head to the grocery tonight and see how much money we would need to buy everything on this list!

We will continue with this topic tomorrow!

Breakfast– oatmeal and banana

Lunch– shredded cheese and turkey on tortillas, bananas/strawberries, and cherry tomatoes/cucumbers.

PM snack– homemade popcorn and PPC peaches.

Wee Sprout– cherry tomatoes.

Have a terrific night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 5/11