TRAFFIC written by Wee Friend alumna,  Arleigh Hope Gee

Red light, red light, stop, stop stop.

Green light, green light, go, go, go!

Yellow light, yellow light, go if you can.

Yellow light, yellow light, go if you can.

Red light stop and green light go-

Yellow light, yellow light, slow……slow…..slow.

Or as Leo put it: “Red, stop. Green, go! Yellow, egg.”

And with that, here’s the green light for a terrific Labor Day Weekend. See you Tuesday, bright and early.

Wee Sprouts: Celery sticks. Breakfast: Corn Flakes and bananas. Lunch: Whole wheat zucchini pancakes, banana/pear fruit salad and cottage cheese. Snack: Pretzels and cheese sticks.

 

Good Afternoon!

**Just as a reminder, we will be closed Monday, September 2nd for Labor Day. We’ll see you on Tuesday! Have a great long weekend .

Our baby friends got a show today. It was called the ‘Emma Show’! While all of the babies were in the living room, Emma decided to provide them with some entertainment. She did cheerleading moves and dances. They found it quite funny . That’s the glorious thing about multi-age: they learn from each other. Emma sure felt important.

 

For breakfast, children had cheerios and peaches. Lunch consisted of egg and cheese roll-ups, apples, and cooked carrots. PM snack was cheddar cheese slices and craisins.

Have a terrific evening.

The Wee Library is rich with great books. It’s a diverse collection of softback, hardback and board books. Fact, fiction, poetry and workbooks. Original and classic works. Disney and Little Golden; Robert Munsch and Dr. Seuss. It has comfy pillows, a soft rug and three steps for our friends to curl up in to read. And make a mess. A frustrating (for teachers)and delicious (for Wee peeps) mess.

So, today, we all made a book mess and sorted it out together.  We discussed all I described above and had friends demonstrate how to treat books with kindness. They held the spine of the book and learned how to put it on the shelf. A small group of friends worked with Melinda to organize the books for easy access and easy clean-up.

As Finn’s dad, Lindsay, explained this morning: “Words are treasures and that’s why we read books!” It’s one of the most important things we do with our Wee Friends each day: Read.  For today, our treasures are very organized.

Ever wonder what happens after lunch?

12-12:20ish – We sit down to eat

12:20-1:00ish– we split into Lisa’s group (on the music rug) and Laurie’s group (on the porch)

1:00ish-2:30ish – Nap and rest time

Friends are excited about learning this routine and super excited about their group! This is the one time of our day that we schedule “direct learning”. Both groups include reading aloud, music (meditation and/or singing) and a literacy or math activity. The lessons are child-initiated and teacher developed/guided. Lisa is working on social and life skills with her Wee Friends. Laurie’s group, this week, has landed on the subject of constellations. Each day, after these groups wrap up, many friends sleep on cots in the back of our classroom, and other friends spend their rest time on green mats, quietly working. Some friends start with a short nap, and then get up and find a quiet activity.  We work with each individual friend (and parents!) to get the right mix of rest/sleep and quiet time.

Hope your day is going well!

Wee Sprouts: Fresh tomatoes. Breakfast: Oatmeal with applesauce and cantaloupe. Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs wrapped in a whole grain tortilla, apple slices and cinnamon sautéed carrots. Snack: Orange slices and yogurt/peanut butter dip.

 

Hope you’re having a wonderful day so far!

Books consumed our morning. Eve is doing a wonderful job at paraphrasing certain books. She remembers parts of multiple books and reads to herself. Even at infant age, literacy and book reading is important!

Smiles were on the faces of our babies all day long!

Lu Lu started a new game with her friends. She’ll crab walk up the slide, stop at the top, and then slide down backwards on her belly. While this is happening, all you hear is “Weeeee!” throughout the house .

Children went to the porch this morning to play with the Legos. We sure did have to use our fine motor skills to disconnect Legos from one another.

We spotted a butterfly outside. Friends observed it and we talked about the different colors that they saw. It must have been the morning for animals because we saw HUGE flock of birds fly over our heads.

For breakfast, children had cheesy eggs and peaches. Lunch consisted of Tami’s homemade cheesy cream of broccoli soup, corn, fresh whole grain bread, and banana. PM snack was string cheese and crackers.

Have a great night!

Learning to play together, work together, talk together, eat together and BE together is one of our primary goals at Wee Friends. Life Skills. This time of year is always filled with change. Mostly, we aim to cultivate these life skills throughout the day in moments of dialogue.  Sometimes, however, we gather a large group and talk about a specific life skill. Today we practiced soft, medium and loud voices and using kind words. We also role played what happens when we use our hands to hit.

Later we put our hands to great use squeezing, molding and working with ooey-gooey Floam.

Do you know the Wee Friends Anthem? Here are the words and listen to your Wee Friend in coming days for the tune!

Wee Friends, Wee Friends, mighty mighty Wee Friends,

We play games, we sing songs!

Wee Friends, Wee Friends, mighty mighty Wee Friends,

We grow friendships all day long!

And we do!!!!

Wee Sprouts: WF garden cucumbers. Breakfast: Cheesy scrambled eggs and cantaloupe. Lunch: Tami’s homemade cheesy cream of broccoli soup, home baked whole wheat bread, bananas and corn. Snack: Peanuts and pear slices.

 

Good Afternoon!

Maya, Tate, and Lucy continue to adjust to Wee Wee life! They love interacting with one another throughout the day.

The in’s and outs of the day—eating, nap time, floor play, and peer interaction are coming together. It’s amazing how adaptable babies are. We’re having a blast watching them change from day to day.

Really..is there anything better than a smile from a baby?

Friends noticed new sandbox toys. There are a couple long cardboard tubes. Friends investigated.

Keerthi looked through the tube and said, “Hi!”

Eve let me know, “I can see you!”

Emma smiled that BIG smile of hers through the tube!

Eve and Keerthi had down time this afternoon to read some books. Keerthi even kicked up her feet.

We had no visitors for breakfast this morning. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortillas, tuna salad, cantaloupe, and peas. PM snack was pretzels and cheddar cheese slices.

Have a great evening.

*If you remember, please bring a baby photo of your Wee Friend!

Late yesterday afternoon Daniel expressed “I want a worm.” I walked with him to the garden and did what Elliott and Elizabeth always do: used my fingers to dig beneath the garden mats into the dirt. I saw up close and down deep what our friends spend hours looking at: the colors, textures, elements and life of the dirt! This morning, Mel, Lisa and I asked ourselves: “do we really see what they see?”  We set out today to answer that question. We checked our own perceptions, knelt down eye level and made a (wee unconventional) photo journal of what we think they see day after day. “What are you working on?” is one question we ask to our friends to get the conversation started. Routine play becomes the great work of pre-school and kindergarten, challenging their bodies, minds and emotions.

Do we really see what they see? We are all digging in deep, each day, talking, creating and inviting each other, in many ways, to look around and really SEE each other in our Wee World!

Wee Sprouts: Cherry tomatoes. Breakfast: Kix and peaches/plums. Lunch: Tuna fish on whole wheat bread, cantaloupe and peas. Snack: Cottage cheese and bananas.

 

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Today, we welcomed our new friend, Lucy! Her older brother Elliot is next door at Wee Friends. He made sure to give her lots of kisses when he dropped her off this morning! We’re so excited to get to know Lucy and her family! Welcome to Wee Wee Friends!

As we headed outside, friends saw a new addition to our backyard! Over the weekend, Miss Tami and crew added a canopy to our sandbox. Now friends will be able to sit in the shade while in the sandbox.

We loved the new addition! Friends sure flocked to the newly buffed up sandbox . Children were very observant as they entered the outdoors!

For breakfast, children had kix and oranges. Lunch consisted of whole grain pasta with marinara sauce and fresh garden veggies, peas, and mixed fruit (banana/peaches). PM snack was string cheese and whole wheat crackers.

Have a lovely Monday evening.

-Mindy

Welcome back Jennifer and the Blue Bus! Here are those groups and times again!

9:00 – Finn, Elizabeth, Elliott, Lea and Ellie 9:30-Marina, Leo, Clara, Daniel, Sloane, Owen

Mel created music with the kids. They started by reading an Eric Carle book about a fox. They learned a days of the week song and then moved on to rhythm work, counting 1-2-3-4 as Mel played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

We invited friends to look at themselves in the mirror and study the color of their eyes.

They matched their eye color with a piece of the same colored paper.

Zoe joined us today! Welcome Zoe to our classroom!

Their was huge excitement when we went outside! Friends got to play beneath the new sandbox tarp that was hung by Tami over the weekend.

Wee Sprouts: Elliott’s garden tomatoes. Breakfast: Wheat toast and pear slices. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta full of Cassie’s tomatoes, WF’s zucchini and Owen’s garden kale. With it, we served peas and peaches. Thanks you, everyone, for sharing your bounty! Snack: Pear slices and Monterrey Jack cheese slices.

Have a great day!

Happy Friday!

It was gross motor Friday. Emma started taking the blocks and jumping as high as she could off of them. Soon, Keerthi and Eve joined her. Emma liked the loud boom that the floor made once she landed on it .

The second part of our gross motor morning consisted of friends playing catch with one another. Eve threw the bouncy balls to Keerthi and Emma who were sitting in the cubbies. Once they were done throwing them, they rolled them. We worked on our hand eye coordination when we were trying to catch the balls.

When we headed outside, we saw that the Wee Teachers and friends were in the middle of picking plums off of the plum tree in the backyard. Our Wee Wee’s joined in to help and observe what was going on.

A few of our friends tried the plums. We made sure to explain that we don’t eat the pits. When Eve found her pit, she dug it out and handed it to a teacher! She loved them! When Lu Lu tasted a bite, she said “mmm”.

Mr. Tate joined us outside for a while. He sure was a hit! Sloane made sure to let everyone know that her baby brother Tate was outside! We sure do have some proud older siblings .

For breakfast, children had cheesy eggs and apples. Lunch was turkey and melted cheese on whole wheat tortillas, plums/oranges, and peas. PM snack consisted of goldfish and craisins.

Our third infant friend will join us on Monday. Stay tuned to meet her! Tate and Maya are soo excited!

Have a terrific weekend. See ya Monday!