This morning was relaxed and peaceful with the kids focusing on small group and independent activities. Here’s a glimpse of our morning:

• *Tami read Bob Books with all of our new readers.

*The children spent quality time painting their race cars in anticipation of the Indiana Wee Friends Beach 500. Many chose to continue creating art using construction paper and tempera paint.

This morning you may have noticed the flock of blue flamingos on the Wee Friends lawn! The Buccellato family “flocked” us! “As a part of the 15th annual U93 RoofSit, flocks of 15 flamingos are being delivered all over St. Joe County to raise awareness for child abuse prevention…”-St. Joe County. Thank you, Missy Little for the great idea of photographing the kids sitting next to a flamingo!

Yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to watch a flat tire being changed. We’ve been studying the amount of time it takes race track pit crews to change tires and to see something similar, in action, was quite a treat!

A Note from Tami on the Electronic Portfolios…

The WF teachers are really enjoying the process of putting the EP’s together for every child. Please note that Melinda is doing much of the computer entry and this is a new process for her to learn. She is quickly becoming computer savvy! The laptop screen is small & we are generally doing these very quickly as we get a snipit of time here and there. Typos and formatting issues have popped up on occasion. Please know that I will go into every file periodically and correct these issues so that the final product will (hopefully) be typo free!

Lunch today: Whole wheat flat bread with turkey, fresh garden greens with shredded carrots, & fresh bananas/pears.

Have a terrific day!

This morning we finished gluing our race car parts together. F.6.19 See a simple task through to completion.

“Race Car”

I’m driving down the race track just as fast as I can,

Fast as I can,

Fast as I can!

I’m driving down the race track just as fast as I can,

‘Cause I want to win this race!

Turn to the right!

Turn to the left!

Slam on the breaks!

The car is spinning !
Straighten the wheel!

(repeat)

I won!!!

F.3.1 Exhibit self-confidence while participating in movement activities.
F.3.2 Talk about enjoying movement activities.

A small group of boys built a race track out of Trios. F.3.9 Make roads for toy trucks and cars.

Their creation included a video camera, pit crew stop with several gas tanks, a tower and an emergency track exit. A windmill created electricity and a wall surrounded the track to keep the cars in. F.4.8 Use “in” and “out” to indicate where things are in space. F.4.10 Use the words “here” or “there” to indicate where things are in space. F.4.11 Follow instructions to place an object “here” or “there.” F.4.12 Follow instructions to place an object “beside” or “next to” something. F.4.13 Follow instructions to place an object “between” two things.

For lunch we served WF lettuce with ranch dressing, pasta with carrots, peas and kidney beans and watermelon/cantelope fruit salad.

Have a great day!

This morning began with a round of The Lady Bug Game (thanks for hanging out David N.!) and a small group of friends reading the interactive wonder-of-a-book, Press This, by Herve Tullet. Thank you, Aimee, for introducing it to us and guiding WF in their exploration of it.

We began our race car assembly today! Using carpenter’s glue, friends started piecing together their race car. Next week, we’ll apply the wheels and then paint it.

Our older friends spent time this morning journaling.

In preparation for next week’s Indiana Wee Friends Beach 500, we learned a race car song. As we sang it, one friend drove a race car as other friends rode and waved the checkered flag. This activity lasted 30 min, or more and friends practiced negotiating turns and roles (who drives? who waves the flag?) brilliantly.

Our garden is bearing much fruit!!! Today we picked purple peas!

Most friends thought the outside purple part was yucky!

But the green pea part was yummy!

All Wee Friends love seeing their garden growing!

More moments from this morning’s outside time….

Parents-if ever you do not want to be mentioned in the blog-please let us know! Our intention is inclusion not embarrassment!

Have a terrific weekend!

This morning, older Wee Friends enjoyed a literacy rich game of Junior Scrabble identifying letters on the board and matching corresponding letter tiles.

Yoga also offers cross curricular learning opportunities. Literacy is in action as we explore letters of the alphabet (ex: C for caterpillar pose). Friends are excited when they recognize ‘their’ letter! Gross motor muscles are being stretched and balanced. When we arrive on poses like S, the seal pose, we lay on our backs, clapping our two hands and two feet together. Implementing math, we ask “How old are you? Three? Everybody clap three times!” Today, when ending our exercise, we sang “I am you, you are me, we are part of all we see…namaste, namaste, namaste..” and enjoyed bowing to one another!

After collecting many circular shaped objects, we brought our shadow puppet screen out and explored which round object looked most like a real race car steering wheel. We added race track environmental music and friends enjoyed driving a steering wheel of their choice.

When the race car interest waned we set out foam shapes. Our preschool/kindergarten aged kids discovered they could create patterns with the shapes.

For lunch we served whole wheat tortillas with melted cheese, carrots and fresh strawberries!

Have a great day.

This morning Melinda led a 1 1/2 hour Sticky Things Exploration! Part One was giving each friend a long piece of contact paper. Exercising their fine motor muscles, friends peeled the paper off the sticky part. Then they experimented with how different materials stuck to the surface. Questions such as “What will happen if we fold our creation over?”, “What happens if we hang it up?” were raised. They discussed the concept of smooth/rough. For Part Two, Melinda put a variety of different types of sticky tape on the table. Friends created 2d and 3d art.

Our Wee-est Wee Friends are not so wee anymore! This morning a group of friends were problem-solving how to get the wagon trike to go. They discovered that if one friend pedaled and another pushed TWO friends could ride!

For lunch, we served whole wheat pasta elbows baked with turkey and mozzarella cheese, applesauce and broccoli.

Don’t forget to bring your child’s swimsuit. Weather permitting, we will water play while outside!

Have a great day!

Using the colors of a traffic light, we created art with glue and construction paper. We discussed what each color symbolizes when on a traffic light and in what order they appear. Older friends then used smaller squares and created various patterns. Younger friends enjoyed gluing and practiced identifying colors as they glued. We created a rhythm game by chanting the patterns (ex: “red–red–yellow–red” to signify a four count etc). F.3.7 Give reason of placement of objects. F.4.7 Sort a group of objects by more than one way. F.4.4 Copy a vertical and horizontal line.

Another game of House was underway this morning. It’s an excellent exercise for friends to find their peaceful place in a group, enabling them to play creatively and collaboratively. There is an ongoing interest in family roles (including pets!) at Wee Friends. Today we explored who makes up a family. F.3.28 Pretend to take care of a doll by feeding and other activities. F.3.29 Play the role of different family members through dramatic play. F.3.30 Discuss members of the family and their roles.

Yesterday, Melinda discovered that our outdoor chicken bucket had become maggot infested. She called Miss Charlotte this morning to find out if we should save it for the chickens. Miss Charlotte expressed that chickens can eat the scraps, maggots and all, but because she couldn’t make it out this week, to bury them. Melinda took a small group of friends behind the shed and they dumped it into the compost. F.3.11 Compare characteristics of living things (e.g., Donkeys have shorter legs and longer ears than horses; a tulip looks like just a cup, but a daffodil looks like a cup and saucer). F.3.12 Talk about different types of plants and animals that inhabit the earth. F.3.13 Participate in activities related to preserving their environment

We enjoyed a delicious homegrown salad today!

With our garden salad, we served peanut butter on whole wheat english muffin and grape/cantelope fruit salad.

Enjoy this day!

INDIANA WEE FRIENDS BEACH 500

We finally decided upon a name for our Derby! This morning Aimee B. stayed and helped friends create the words for our banner! Thank you Amy!

An older friend suggested that everyone

would need a trophy so we set out to make Derby trophies with cardboard tunes and bottle caps.

A few friends unrolled the yoga mats, explaining that they were going to become sandwiches. It became a creative drama exploration with friends becoming grilled cheese sandwiches! We lathered butter, milk and sugar on our bread, sizzled as the stove heated up and experimented with what it feels like when your cheesy body melts. Some friends even took a bite!

Melinda unearthed an insect matching/sorting game. Friends dug into the plastic insects and sorted them onto a corresponding card by color and type.

Stuck inside because of the rain, Melinda gathered friends into Hopscotch for a gross motor game about a clown who does tricks. Friends slid down the ball pit slide and performed many unique tricks!

For lunch we served chicken quesadillas, peas and mandarin oranges.

Have a great day!

Happy Friday!

For the last few days, our friends have been experimenting with the many ways to wear a scarf! Out of them they have created bracelets, skirts, head wraps, shirts and shawls. This morning the imaginative play centered around a mom with a feuding dog and cat. The baby sitter arrived and was given explicit directions on how to care for the baby, including “if the baby goes potty, clean it and the whole house after.” Friends sustained this play for 30 minutes or more as various kids jumped in and out of the plot!

Several friends spent time in the truck room with the Magna-Tiles, creating Tee-Pees and garages with with pointy ears.

We created art with tempera paint on newsprint and played Go Fish and Uno.

Thank you, Matt, for the delicious strawberries! We served them for lunch along with whole wheat crusted cheese pizza and carrot/celery sticks.

We harvested our first batch of lettuce leaves and are going to taste test them for our snack this afternoon!

Hope your Father’s Day Weekend is peaceful and celebratory!