Good Afternoon! We enjoyed an array of indoor and outdoor activities today.

This morning we experimented with mixed media in the art center.  We tried using oil pastels to draw.  Then we painted over the drawings with water color for new and interesting effects.  A couple of kids ran with the new technique and made six or more paintings!

We planted tomato plants and carrot seeds in the garden today!  Several volunteers dug a deep hole for planting.  We learned that tomato plants can grow roots from their stem.  We learned that planting them deep would give them a healthy root system! Next we each took a tomato plant and carefully covered it with dirt.

Nesta made a special request to plant carrots. Since she had done so much work weeding the garden bed, she got to plant most of the seeds  She was happy to share the work work with Ryan and Paige who were also interested!

PREK2:  During group today we read “All the World”.  At the end of the story we thought of a place we would like to visit if we could pick anywhere in the world!  We came up with some great answers.  Several friends said they would choose “the beach”.  Asher had his own idea saying, “My Bed!”

Breakfast– Overnight oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh cantaloupe.

Lunch– Farm fresh scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, whole wheat bread, fresh strawberries/clementines, and fresh pepper/cucumber/pepper.

PM snack- Humus with tortilla chips

Wee Sprouts– Fresh snap peas/cucumber/pepper.

Have a great night.

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures:2024-05-29

Happy Sunny Day!

We began our morning engaged in a variety of activities.  Eliza went down the slide upside down, Eden rolled her ball down the slide, another friend climbed up onto the habi-trail, Charlotte rocked in the rocking chair with Eleanor, Eleanor walked on the textured circles, Milo laid at the bottom of the slide to interact with Charlotte, Ben practiced his yoga poses and another friend worked on the triangle stacker.

Several friends requested to paint today.  Miss Bekah got out our small, medium and large circle sponge brushes for us to use with blue, red and yellow tempera paint.  Some friends stamped circles to fill their paper, while others clustered their circles together to make their painting.

We then went out and danced and shook our dancing scarves to Shake Your Sillies Out while acting out the motions.  One specific action we acted out was yawning.

We then headed outside the enjoy the beautiful sunshine engaged in our favorite activities.

Breakfast:  Overnight oatmeal with cinnamon/sugar mixture and fresh mandarin oranges.

Lunch:  Farm fresh scrambled eggs, fresh strawberries, mini sweet/red bell peppers and whole grain wheat tortillas.

Afternoon Snack:  White corn tortilla chips and refried beans.

Wee Sprouts:  Cucumbers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures: 2024-05-29

Reminder:  Wee Friends will be closed Monday, June 24-Friday, July 5 for our summer vacation.  Thank you.

Good Afternoon!

This morning, our friends sat in the plastic blocks with a ball. Miss Bekah told our friends how the blocks reminded her of nests. She explained the similarity to the book “Daisy and the Egg,” where Daisy the duck sits on an egg while she waits for it to hatch.

We then made our way to the kitchen for a loose parts activity. Our friends were given tongs, spoons, a bowl, pompoms, and dominoes. They all worked on using the tongs or spoon to fill up their bowl.

We went outside to enjoy some of our favorite activities like pushing small trucks in the rock area, going down the hill with bikes, playing in the sand box, and riding the teeter totter on our own or with a friend.

Breakfast:  Corn Chex cereal and fresh apples.

Lunch: Whole grain wheat tortilla with peanut butter, 1/2 stick of mozzarella cheese, corn, and oranges.

Afternoon Snack: Whole wheat cinnamon/raisin bagel with buttery spread.

Wee Sprouts:  Mini sweet peppers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2024-05-28

Good Afternoon!

**Reminder: Wee Friends will be closed starting Monday, June 24 through Friday, July 5th. We’ll reopen Monday, July 8th.

This week, we kicked off a conversation about maps and globes. For today’s sign in, children looked at a map of the United States. I asked, “What’s one thing that you can see on this map?”. A few friends pointed to a specific state while another friend pointed to our friends to the north: Canada! This allowed us to talk in group about the difference between states and countries. One friend had pointed to Alaska so we talked about how Alaska is a state even though it’s not connected to the rest of the states. One of our friends is visiting Italy and the group asked, “Is Hannah is one of the states?!”. Great question to start our group time tomorrow!

Social Studies: K.3.2 Identify maps and globes as ways of representing Earth and understand differences between a map/globe.

Today we explored beading in the sensory bin.  We could make patterns, count or just use our imaginations.  Arthur, Paige and Hannah got interested in how many beads they could fit on their string.  We got to talk about simple addition as they added one more bead.  Each time they added another they asked “How many now?”.  We talked about what number comes next.

PREK2: Today we read “Alphabet Adventure”.  After the story we looked for the first letter of out name on the board then put our name sticker next to it.

Breakfast– Chex and fresh clementines.

Lunch– Peanut butter on whole wheat flatbread/bread, fresh cantaloupe/clementines, and fresh pepper/cucumber.

PM snack– Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh pepper/cucumber.

Have a lovely night!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-05-28

Happy Friday!

Our sign in for PREK1 asked the question, “What is your favorite day of the week?”. Answers were quite similar as the responses were only three days of the week: Friday, Saturday, or Sunday! Right as a child started writing their favorite day of the week, they shared why. One friend shared that their favorite day of the week was Friday because they get pizza and the next day is Saturday!

Later in group, we did our last calendar session of the week. We quickly realized that it’s a three day weekend because of Memorial Day! One friend shared, “Usually I don’t like Monday’s but I’ll like that one!”.

Social Studies: K.1.5 Explain that calendars are used to represent days of the week and months of the year.

It was a day filled with open ended activities at Wee Friends!  Outside we set out water, pipes, connectors and funnels. Then, let groups of six work together to figure out what to do.  The group built a nice structure to pour water.  We learned about how to make something stand by making an even support system and building a support structure at the bottom.  We also learned about water flow as we tried making a long pipe system that went down the stairs.  We talked about how water always flows downward to the lowest point!

In the art center we explored what to make with playdough and dinosaurs.  There were lots of ideas.  We had caves, nests filled with eggs…even dinosaur shoes and clothes!

PREK2: At group today we read the story “Pie in the Sky”.  As we read, we went around the circle.  For each page, one friend in the group described one thing on the page using a descriptive color.  At the end we came up to the board and tried to remember what we saw.  Everyone was able to do the exercise! What great memories! 

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh blueberries.

Lunch– Turkey sandwiches on whole wheat bread, fresh watermelon/strawberries/banana/clementines, and fresh green beans/cucumber/pepper.

PM snack– Pretzels with string cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh green beans/cucumber/pepper.

Have a lovely holiday weekend!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-05-24

Happy Friday!  Enjoy some pictures from our day!

Breakfast:  Whole grain brown rice cakes with peanut butter and bananas.

Lunch:  Ham lunch meat, whole grain wheat bread, fresh pineapple and butternut squash.

Afternoon Snack:  Pretzels and Colby-Monterey Jack block cheese.

Wee Sprouts:  Mini sweet peppers.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures:  2024-05-24

Good afternoon!

We had a very musical start to our morning! Ms. Jena brought down the drums for our friends. We drummed along to the beat of the “Jungle Animals” song. It instructed us to “stomp like an elephant” so we drummed instead of stomping. We also made music with the pianos and xylophones.

We then went outside for some sensory water play. We used slotted spoons or dishes to watch the water go down the small holes. Ms.Tina showed our older friends how to use the baster to collect and release water. A friend showed their other friends a frog and said “ribbit, ribbit!.”

We then engaged with our other favorite outdoor activities. We sat on a bench and cooled off in the shade, played in the playhouse, used our imaginative skills to pretend to cook in the kitchen, pushed trucks in the circle area, scooped sand with different tools and objects in the sandbox and rode the teeter totter. Eden had so much fun outside that she shared a big smile with Ms.Jena!

Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios cereal with fresh cantaloupe slices.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with red beans, strawberries, and broccoli.

Afternoon Snack: Sunflower seeds with whole grain wheat Triscuit crackers.

Wee Sprout: Cucumber.

Have a wonderful evening!

Tina and Jena

Link to pictures: 2024-05-23

Good Afternoon!

We spent a lot of time caring for animals today at the farm!  We helped out with cleaning out the horses, goats and turkey stalls.  We fed the animals as well.  Next we helped move a mother hen and her new baby chicks into their new enclosure.  We were probably most interested as a group in watching an injured house receive wound care and a change of bandages!  We left with every kind of animal poop on our farm boots, but also with rare and unique learning experiences!

Back at Wee Friends, we had a busy morning of various activities including painting at the art easel, playdough, and an engaging music session!

At the playdough trays, children used a variety of tools to manipulate their playdough including plastic scissors and a garlic press. These two were our favorite tools to use!

These two boys had the same shirt on today AND the accordion was their favorite musical instrument! It was quite popular and we did a quality job of taking turns! Children explored musical instruments such as maracas, triangle, and wooden sticks.

The art easel was opened and quickly, a few friends came to set up camp and complete several paintings. There were several different markings that children made on their paper including dots and thin lines. When Paige finished her painting, she pronounced, “It’s my sister; Rowan!”.

Breakfast– Chex and fresh pineapple.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded turkey, fresh watermelon, and fresh snap peas/cucumber/green pepper.

PM snack– Whole wheat crackers with peanut butter and a mixture of toppings including sunflower seeds, pepita seeds, and peanuts.

Wee Sprout– Fresh green pepper/snap peas/cucumber.

Have a great night!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-05-23

Happy Wednesday!

Last week one little girl had been so interested in scissors that all she wanted to do was cut paper into little pieces.  This led to cutting up the envelopes that were provided to hold the little pieces of paper…  So this week we created a sensory bin where cutting things into tiny pieces was the entire objective!  There were several friends that learned to use scissors during this activity who had never tried them before. Paige was a little nervous but as she got the hang of using the scissors she exclaimed “Yeah! I like this!” 

We continued to follow the scissor interest into the art center, cutting up colored straws for open ended creation.  Some friends decided they would cut up straws for “other friends” to use…so they could keep cutting.  Others enjoyed making things with the straws.  Adrian said he was making “hammers and hats” with his straws.  William made a “person”.  He chose to lay out his design ahead of time so his pieces were pre-cut to the correct size.  In doing so, he demonstrated some excellent forethought and planning skills!  All this was the result of one child’s interest!  That’s why we love child led learning at Wee Friends!

Several friends created an obstacle course using squares to jump on.  It attracted a lot of attention and participation from the rest of the classroom!

Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh strawberries

Lunch: Whole wheat tortilla egg and cheese roll-ups with fresh pineapple, banana, carrots and snap peas

PM Snack: Air-Popped corn with raisins

Wee Sprouts: fresh snap peas and carrots

Have a wonderful afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to Photos:2024-05-22

Good Afternoon!

The friends began their morning engaging in a variety of activities.  Eliza, Eleanor and Milo engaged at the circle table with the colored bucket people and color bowls loose parts, another friend looked at a book, Eden dressed up in dress up clothes and accessories, and Charlotte walked around carrying an animal.

We then headed into the kitchen to engage with more loose parts.  There were hollow circles and rings with people.  While Ben was playing with his loose parts, he asked Miss Tina, “is this how this goes?”  Miss Tina then explained to Ben that there is no right way to play with loose parts.

When we headed outside, Miss Bekah got out the wagon and we all made multiple trips around the circle before the preschool friends came out.

We then enjoyed engaging in our favorite activities.

Breakfast:  Overnight  oatmeal with cinnamon/sugar mixture and bananas.

Lunch:  Farm fresh scrambled eggs, fresh cantaloupe, cucumbers and whole grain wheat tortillas.

Afternoon Snack:  White corn tortilla chips with hummus.

Wee Sprouts:  Red bell peppers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures: 2024-05-22