WF Daily Explorations, Farm Day! 9-7-11

Today was another wonderful farm day! It was a bit chilly when we arrived, but the sun quickly warmed us up.

This trip we had 3 younger friends and 2 older friends as helpers. Jane and Kai really took their role seriously and held hands, explained, and demonstrated throughout the morning.

Some of the highlights were:

Feeding the goats our WF scraps.

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Holding, touching, feeding and learning about the chickens. The younger children were intimidated by the goats and the chickens initially, but became comfortable as the morning went by.

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With Ms. Charlotte’s help, we also spent some time grooming the horses today. She showed everyone how to use the pick to clean the hooves of the horses. Everyone that wanted to try was able to help.

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Later we went on a walk and we saw many different things: caterpillars of many shapes and sizes, beetles, ants, butterflies, birds, bees, & flies. (Notice the beetles and the caterpillar we found on this milkweed!)

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087After lunch at WF, the older children gathered around and had a farm discussion with Miss Laurie. They brainstormed all the things that you find at Ms. Charlotte’s farm. The children that went last week clearly remembered a lot about their farm experience. The children from today brought in fresh ideas to the discussion.

After the message board time, the children were excited to journal about the farm. They each enthusiastically chattered about their favorite parts of the farm. They drew, to their own ability, a representation of something related to the farm.

This type of real experience connection to language and literature creates meaningful learning that is unparalleled in any way!

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Have a great day!

WWF Falling for sensory activities!

Welcome Eleanor! Eleanor is the newest member of the WWF Family. She seems to be acclimating just fine and enjoying her new friends.

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This morning we did several different sensory activities for the children. Many of them enjoyed playing with the bubble wrap, while others played with our fuzz balls on our felt board. We also experienced feeling the different textures of materials. As Fall weather seemed to be upon us, our tub full of fall leaves were on hand to scoop and brush them. Some of the older children went on a walk and experienced feeling different textures of real leaves first hand. Different home grown herbs were available for the children to feel and smell as well. The children experienced mint, sage, rosemary and parsley.

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It seemed as though the slide was a big focal point this morning. Olivia and Elizabeth really enjoyed it. Finn and Sloane focused on their gross motor skills by riding all around the circle. Pnei’el enjoyed the swing. The children enjoyed picking our harvest of tomatoes and cucumbers. They were both later served as our late morning snack. They were both delicious!

Our morning breakfast goers had fresh homemade muffins and bananas. For lunch today we had ham and cheese tortillas, peas and cantaloupe. For snack today we will enjoy some cheese and pretzels.

Tomorrow we will bid farewell to Finn and his beautiful parent’s, Jen and Lindsay. They depart on Thursday for Barcelona, Spain for a semester. Upon their January return, Finn will be at WF. Please join us in wishing them safe travels.

Enjoy the beauty of this day~

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WF Daily Explorations

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Today was the first day of swimming!

This morning a group of friends were building in the truck room with wooden blocks. Two friends determined that what they built was a cave. Another friend insisted the piled up blocks was a slide. After much conversation friends understood that it could be both things at once! We discussed the idea that what one friend has in mind may be completely different than the other friend-but both are ok!

We set out Play-Doh this morning and one of our toddlers exclaimed “I cut this in half!” after using a plastic rotary ‘blade’ to do so. We continued this mathematical concept by discussing half/whole and other shapes being created.

When Melinda began playing her accordian, friends gathered quickly to sing/dance. After a while, the musicians settled into a comfortable rhythm, finding an instrument and seating position to make music. Each friend found his/her place whether it was dancing, singing or beating a drum.

With our classroom dynamic changing (new friends/different ages etc) it is exciting for us to see friends find their WF voice! Many of our friends who were previously younger are taking on a leadership role that includes helping/teaching friends.

For lunch we served ham/cheese on whole wheat tortillas, fruit salad and mixed veggies. Have a great day!

WWF, Lessons in Conflict Resolution

We have spent a great deal of time in the morning working with the children on conflict resolution. This has been a work in progress, and it seems as though daily we see progress with the children.

We have all been working with the children to use their words if someone is trying to take a toy from them. Yesterday afternoon, we had an older WWF who was on our lion rocker. Another WWF wanted to ride it at the same time. Our older WWF used her words to tell her friend that she could use it as soon as she was done. The older WWF stayed on for another minute or so, then helped her little friend get on it. It is so nice to see the children working together! They responded the same way to a similar situation this morning outside while playing in our log cabin house. Chairs were blocking the entry way, and the children worked together to move the chairs out of the way. They are all progressing so nicely with this developmental stage.

The children enjoyed some fresh cucumber and tomato from the garden today for a light, late morning snack. For lunch today, we had some delicious pizza on whole wheat crust with Miss Laurie’s delicious homemade sauce. This was accompanied with some broccoli, and watermelon. For those of us who joined us for breakfast, we had Cheerios and banana. Our late afternoon snack consisted of animal crackers and pears.

This afternoon the children were creative, with one thing leading to another, and before long, caves were being created with blankets being placed over our cubby area. It was so interesting to hear their dialogue and see their creativity expanding each and every day. We also listened to some new song books. “Sunshine on my shoulders” was a real crowd pleaser.

Just a reminder that we are closed on this Monday in observance of Labor Day. Enjoy this time with your family.

WF Daily Explorations Friday Sept. 2

Together with Creative Curriculum for Preschool, Wee Friends regularly incorporates Foundations to the Indiana Academic Standards for Young Children into the planned and emergent lessons each day. Three of the standards directly involve teaching our friends to follow directions.

F.7.4 Follow one-step spoken directions without prompts (e.g., Get your shoe).

F.7.12 Follow two-step spoken directions with prompts. (e.g., pick up your plate and take it to the kitchen)

F.7.31 Understand and follow a one-step direction. (e.g., get the red shoe)

Here are some ways this translates into our play-based/child initiated environment.

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This morning Annie asked if she could continue working with beads. The one step direction to create art is well understood: please sit down on a chair or stool. The two step direction to produce beadwork is also clear: hold the pipe cleaner with one hand and place the bead onto the pipe cleaner.

 

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During Creative Music we made a circle of dinosaur nests. As we sang the one step direction was: walk in a circle on the nests.

 

 

 

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Missy Little brought in a new collection of stickers-Thank You!!! Melinda’s directive was clear: choose THREE stickers and stick then to your paper. Friends counted as they stuck stickers to the paper. When friends chose to stick more stickers on the reminder was “…I see you chose 6 stickers….remember the direction was to stick 3…let’s count how many you have on your paper…” and the lesson is further explored.

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Early Childhood Today Journal contributor Susan A. Miller, EdD suggests “Preschoolers’ individual learning styles also influence how they receive, understand, and follow directions. Analytic children enjoy having directions broken down into small parts step-by-step; global learners need to see or understand the whole picture. A child who learns best visually says, “Let me see how to do it,” while the auditory child says, “Tell me the way to do it,” and the tactile child states, “Let me do it.” It’s important to give children directions that relate to their learning styles and involve open-ended questions and two-way communication.”

We are always working toward cultivating cooperation and developing listening skills in a variety of cross curricular opportunities as we guide our friends through their busy days! As language develops and vocabulary expands, comprehension increases and the benefits of these covert learning opportunities come to light!

MG 8058For lunch we served cheese pizza on whole wheat muffins with homemade WF marinara! Along with the pizza we had watermelon (Thank You, Jennae G.!) and carrots.

Have a terrific weekend and remember WF is closed Monday! See you Tuesday!

WF Daily Explorations Thursday Sept. 1

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Paulina came to school today with new glasses! The children’s observation of this led to a fine motor activity: creating eye glasses with pipe cleaners.

 

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Jane knows every lyric to Puff the Magic Dragon. When a few friends put hand puppets on (including the dragon!), we played the song and followed along to the beautifully illustrated book. Jane turned the pages and led the chorus of singers as they belted out the refrain!

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Singing Puff led us to a music exploration using our rhythm sticks. We practiced rhythm by tapping our sticks together in different ways, listening and following directions and exploring the musical dynamic ‘rest’. We stretched our bodies and accelerated our heartbeats by moving to Hap Palmer’s Stuff it in the Closet. Creative Music ended with a sensorial meditation in which friends were visited by butterflies (fingers), caterpillars (kitchen sponge), swishy fish (drops of water) and snowflakes (bag of ice).

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Paulina led a small group to the front porch where she read My Granny Went to Market by Stella Blackstone. She read it in English but in the book,MG 7998 as Granny visited other countries, they discussed different languages.

 

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They practiced counting in Spanish and sang the Spanish version of Wheels on the Bus.

Outside, Melinda supervised friends as they lathered up WF chairs with shaving cream. Friends gave the chairs a good scrubbing!

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For lunch we served ham and cheese on whole wheat tortillas, WF cucumbers/carrots with Ranch and fresh peaches-thank you, Matt D.!

We hope you are enjoying your day!

WWF, Beads, Bangles and Bubbles, and Foster Grants

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The children played with our beads this morning. Some of them enjoyed stringing them, while others matched them to the shape and color strips. A few of the older children counted their beads, and we worked on sequencing as well. This seemed to be a great morning project.

We tried to beat the morning heat and headed outside a little earlier than usual. Lucky for Miss Lisa, as we had some wonderful chefs in our playhouse kitchen. The children made pasta, broccoli, and milk, with “brown” ice cream for dessert. They worked together on mixing, adding ingredients to their imaginary creations, plated their delicious food, and even served it to her.

Our morning walks seem to be a ritual. The children loved listening for a train again today, and prior to our departure from WWF, we read a book about a spider creating a big web. A spider and web were spotted on our walk. More discussion about spiders continued throughout the morning.

Puzzles, trains, and placing colored pegs in some of our Styrofoam cut outs of various things (a butterfly, duck and train were used today) was a great activity after coming inside. Some of the children enjoyed water and bubble play in the kitchen. They washed some of our animals, and had a lot of fun while doing so. Elizabeth and Marta played together with our trains, while Sloane and Olivia had fun on our Jungle Gym.

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For breakfast this morning, we served whole wheat English Muffins, and fresh fruit. We have been doing a light, late morning snack that consists of vegetables from our garden. The children seem to eat a lot more of these at this time rather than lunch. Today we had green beans and sliced fresh tomato. Our lunch menu this afternoon was whole wheat cheese tortillas, broccoli, and some delicious peaches. For snack today we will have muffins and bananas.

Enjoy the day, and don’t forget your sunglasses!

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Our WWF’s come prepared!

WF Farm! 8-30-11

What a beautiful day to experience the farm!  Since I am short on blog time, I will share many pictures (full set uploading to flickr as I write) and few words. 

We started our trip by reuniting with many of the animals:  the chickens, goats, cats, horses.  The children helped to mix the grain for the chickens & turkeys and feed them. 

On our walk through the woods we held a toad, a caterpillar and we had an up close look a variety of birds and a gazillion butterflies. The kids spent time in the woods looking under rotten logs for bugs, climbing on fallen trees, and exploring the log cabin.  While we walked through the prairie, we really noticed sounds: crickets, frogs, birds, &  wind through the tall flowers. 

At the end of our trip, Charlotte had each child learn about horse safety and they each had a turn using proper mounting technique to climb on Taffy and sit on her for a few minutes while she stood still.  What a treat for all of them! 

We brought back a gorgeous flower bouquet for our table and a caterpillar to see if he will make a cocoon for us.  (The caterpillar brought in last week by a Wee Friender hatched today into  a moth.)

WF/WWF Pics on Blog and Flickr!

Enjoy the pics from the past week!

The direct link to the WF pics on Flickr…. http://www.flickr.com/photos/weefriends/sets/72157627555445678/

(There are still some uploading from the classroom from yesterday and today!)

WF Farm Today (also in process of uploading now!): http://www.flickr.com/photos/weefriends/sets/72157627563679824/

WWF: http://www.flickr.com/photos/weefriends/sets/72157627429458053/

 

 

 

WWF, Calgon, take us away!

 

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The children had a great morning. The imaginary alarm sounded, and Finn, Max, and Marta put on their fire hats and jackets, and ran outside

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to respond to the call. Finn found the “treasure” hidden in the sand. The boys then decided after their hard work, it was time to bake some muffins.

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Next, it was time for a sensory activity. The children loved the tub of water filled with bubbles. Some of them even climbed in and began cleaning themselves with the toothbrushes we had placed in the tubs for the children to wash rocks with to help build their fine motor skills. Others used our ball crates to make train cars. They are sure becoming very creative by exploring and using their imaginations. Finn collected the train tickets, and made the final call for “All aboard!”

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Our little Wee one’s enjoyed their outside exploration time by walking and crawling around the yard exploring all of the different things to do. Different groups of children went on walks and they observed a train from a far. This opened up much dialogue, as you can well imagine.

For breakfast this morning, we had scrambled eggs, toast, and fresh fruit. Our lunch today was couscous with black beans, vegetable medley, and fruit salad. Our afternoon snack will consist of cheese and crackers.

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Ozzie really seemed to enjoy “The Wheels on the bus go round and round” with Miss Paulina.

Have a splendid day!