Happy Last Day of August!

This week marks the beginning of our first 12-week rotating cycle using the Wee Friends Framework for Academic Balance (FABs). The FABs were created by Tami in 2012 as an organizational tool to ensure that our older preschoolers and kindergartners are offered activities that encompass the Indiana Academic Standards for Kindergarten. For more information on our FABs see https://www.weefriendskids.com/program-philosophy/.

Each week, I will highlight some of the ways we integrate the FABs into our lesson plans and activities based on the interests and needs of the children. 

These are this week’s literacy standards:

K.RF.2.4 Identify and name all uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

K.RF.3.2 Orally segment words into syllables.

In large group this afternoon, we began practicing hearing syllables by learning the syllables song! We figured out the number of syllables in everyone’s name.

Today Wee Frienders had a lot of fine motor skill practice. This morning friends were engaged with pipe cleaners and a strainer:

Beadwork:

And hammering nails!

Kindergarten: Today the kindergarteners played a counting and one-to-one correspondence game called “Counting Sheep.”  This work then evolved to predicting how many sheep were in a pile, counting the actual number and then figuring out how many sheep you were off by. Elizabeth and Elliott were particularly engaged because they made up the rules of the game!

Wee Sprouts: Carrots/cucumber. Breakfast: Toasted whole wheat bread with butter and grapes. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with shredded beef and tomatoes and oranges. Snack: Organic whole milk yogurt and fresh Purple Porch raspberries!

Have a wonderful afternoon. –Jessica

Hello! Today was a busy day full of learning.

Many creations were made out of play dough:

The guitars prompted smiles, singing and rounds of applause!

    

Later, friends requested songs on the computer. After a sampling of Halloween songs (yes, Halloween songs already!) we got out some sticks. A Wee Friend favorite is Tap Your Sticks by Hap Palmer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-UKTeWNgOk]

Outside friends found a HUGE slug:

The ice cream shop also brought lots of visitors:

 

“Whoooooo wants iceeee creeeeam?!”

Kindergarten: Today the kindergarteners played a game called “Chomp!” where they reach into an “alligator” (made from an old yogurt container) and pull out a letter. Next, they identify the letter, its sound and a word that starts with that letter. However, if they pull out a “chomp” card the alligator eats all the letters again!

To also include math skills in this activity, Elizabeth and Elliott made tally marks for each letter they pulled. At the end of three games we added up the number of letters they got from the alligator and found out that 6+3+2=11!

  

Wee Sprouts: Cucumber. Breakfast: Brown rice pancakes with butter and fresh strawberries. Lunch: Whole wheat tortillas with almond butter, green beans/tomatoes/peppers and bananas. Snack: Mozzarella string cheese and fresh grapes/apples/oranges/pears.

Have a great weekend! –Jessica

Friends played peek-a-boo outside this morning!

The wooden trains have become Franklin’s favorite toys!

Rosemary, Anna, and Ruby played with the colorful tissues. They pretended to clean and blow their little noses with them.

Breakfast was Kix cereal and bananas. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with black beans, strawberries, and peas. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with sweet pea butter.

Have a good evening!

Amanda

Sometimes transitional weeks, with old friends leaving and new friends arriving, can be chaotic. There are new routines to learn and new friends to get to know, prospects both challenging and exciting. This week, however, has been smooth sailing!

This morning was a perfect example, as every single Wee Friend was happily engaged in self-directed work. Every area of the house was utilized: puzzles at the round table, drawing at the art table, building in the back, reading in the reading area and so much more.

The same engaged play outside, too!

We’re blessed to have such a wonderful group of Wee Friends.

Kindergarten: Today the kindergarteners continued their building work, this time creating a city. As you can see from the habitrail logs, their creation included a “vacation house” and “town.” They were able to hear many of the consonant sounds!

After the building was completed, Elliott and Elizabeth decided to go up into the habitrail to look at their city from above. This gave us the opportunity to talk about what it means to have a “bird’s eye view” and make connections to previous experiences of seeing things from above [e.g. on an airplane—“the cars looked smaller than toy cars!”]

Have a wonderful Thursday! –Jessica

Wee Sprouts: Green beans. Breakfast: Corn flakes and raisins. Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with black beans, tomatoes and red/green grapes. Snack: Peanuts and wheat thins.

Friends got to play with sand outside and inside today. There was moon sand in the kitchen this afternoon!

David played with waffle blocks and had a blast with the tunnel. He loved looking through it and seeing the other kids!

Breakfast was whole grain oatmeal and bananas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with ham, watermelon, and cauliflower. Afternoon snack was rice cakes with hummus.

Have a great night!

Friends got to play with sand outside and inside today. There was moon sand in the kitchen this afternoon!

David played with waffle blocks and had a blast with the tunnel. He loved looking through it and seeing the other kids!

Breakfast was whole grain oatmeal and bananas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with ham, watermelon, and cauliflower. Afternoon snack was rice cakes with hummus.

Have a great night!

collaboration

col·lab·o·ra·tion

1. the action of working with someone to produce or create something

2. to work jointly with others, especially in an intellectual endeavor

We see so much collaboration and teamwork here at Wee Friends every day. Here is a brief sampling of the many ways friends work together. Sometimes friends work towards a product (like finishing a puzzle or completing a building with blocks) but most of the time friends are happy just to be engaged in the process with others.

We create pictures on the Light Brite and use our strength to lift heavy logs:

We collaborate at the workbench and explore each and every dinosaur WF has:

And we finish a puzzle and search for hidden objects in books:

We love working together!

Kindergarten: This morning the kindergarteners were engaged in creating a “hideout” out of blocks. Building upon this natural engagement, we reintroduced the concept of the “habitrail log”.

In this type of work friends draw a picture of their creation and write about it. This provides an opportunity to practice hearing letter sounds and writing letters in a meaningful and authentic way. Rather than being forced to write about something arbitrary or that they don’t care about, our kindergarteners are excited to write about something that they made! 

Wee Sprouts: Cucumbers. Breakfast: Whole grain oatmeal and bananas. Lunch: Whole wheat flat bread with turkey, tomatoes/cauliflower and watermelon. Snack: Homemade popcorn with butter and bananas.

^We were amazed by the new popcorn machine this afternoon!

Have a great day! –Jessica

Anna and Rosemary played together with baby dolls this morning.

Franklin and Anna enjoyed listening to stories. Franklin looked at some books on his own, too.

Outside, the girls were pretending the chairs were cars. They pushed them in a circle around the little house and said, “beep beep!”

Breakfast was whole grain Cheerios and strawberries. Lunch consisted of whole wheat bread with hummus, cantaloupe, and tomatoes. Afternoon snack was English muffins with cream cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Anna and Rosemary played together with baby dolls this morning.

Franklin and Anna enjoyed listening to stories. Franklin looked at some books on his own, too.

Outside, the girls were pretending the chairs were cars. They pushed them in a circle around the little house and said, “beep beep!”

Breakfast was whole grain Cheerios and strawberries. Lunch consisted of whole wheat bread with hummus, cantaloupe, and tomatoes. Afternoon snack was English muffins with cream cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Please note: Wee Friends will be closed Monday, September 7 for Labor Day.

Rosemary and Anna had fun playing in the rain water left on the art table.

Then they played in the little house. Anna loves closing the shutters and throwing them back open.

David shoveled sand into his bowl and looked at the bright flowers in the garden.

 

Breakfast was whole wheat toast with butter and bananas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with shredded chicken, bananas, and mixed vegetables. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt mixed with French vanilla yogurt and strawberries.

Have a good night!

Amanda