We are looking,each day, for an opportunity to get the kids outside! We assess the temperature, starting about 10:30am, and we look for “real feel” to be a number we think kids will be comfortable playing in. We take into account sunshine and wind! Unfortunately, we didn’t make it out this am!

HAPPY BIG THREE LEO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Math FAB K.1.17 and K.1.8: Find a number that is more/less than a number, up to 10: Use correctly the words one/many, none/some/all, more/less and most/least.

Many friends worked on Leo’s Big Birthday Card.

Other friends used a variety of math manipulatives and explored the above FABS.

Elliott experimented with a launch pad.

Clara puzzled and matched rhymes. She’s also been belting out     “C-L-A-R-A!” We followed her lead and cheered the letters that make up other friend’s names.

A group of friends played Maleficent under the habitrail. When casting the roles, the witch was said to possess “a black heart because she’s a witch”. We talked about the color black and sad and angry emotions.

And we celebrated Leo, in large and small groups, with his favorite toys and his birthday kazoo.

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Cereal and raisins. Lunch: Whole wheat tortillas with peanut butter, peas and pears. Snack: Birthday cupcakes and apple slices.

Hope you’ve had a terrific day and here comes the sun.

Laurie

Good Afternoon!

The morning crew started off their day manipulating stackable blocks. Henri enjoyed taking two blocks and banging them together. Saskia stacked them one by one while Tate laughed when the tower got knocked down .

Saskia, Eren, and Nora played with play-doh in the kitchen. They used hammers, rolling pins, and their fingers to investigate it.

Eren noticed that there were sparkles in the play-doh!

For breakfast, children had toast with butter and oranges. Lunch consisted of turkey and cheese slices, bread, black beans, and pears. PM snack was cottage cheese and pretzels.

Have a fantastic snowy night!

Good Afternoon! Unfortunately at our outdoor time, the temp was ONLY 12 degrees.  Major disappointment for all.  However, we easily stayed busy in a group project creating a beautiful classroom yarn/heart piece of art, exploring more bat concepts and learning about Sloane’s new interest….clouds, in addition to all the regular work we do daily.

For those who haven’t been watching the weather, there is a Winter Weather Advisory for our entire area from Tuesday to Wednesday afternoon.  More snow.  Oh yeah. 

There are still a few families not in our text service.  It’s wickedly easy to get notified immediately by text for any closings or delays we may have.  Just send @weefr to 574-310-8161.  You will be prompted to text your name and then you are all set.  It will save me panicked phone calls to people who aren’t signed up when we have a sudden change of plans like a week ago Monday and I’m trying to reach multiple people before they leave their house.

VALENTINE’S DAY 2014, FRIDAY FEBRUARY 14TH

Love is in the air!  On Valentine’s Day, children are welcome to bring in valentine’s for their friends and teachers.  Here’s some ground rules:

• Keep it simple! Don’t be up until 2:00 a.m. the night before creating stunning scrapbooking worthy valentines unless you love doing this and find it a joy.  The kids are very happy with any valentine that comes their way, including those store bought ones.
• Please don’t “up the ante” by bringing high dollar or elaborate valentines.  If you do choose a valentine with candy, keep it small.
• All valentines and candy will be sent home with your child to enjoy with you.
• Feel free to just label the “from” part of the valentine and your child can then just put one in each valentine bag.

Children in our WF classroom:

1. Finn
2. Elizabeth
3. Marta
4. Leo
5. Clara
6. Zoi
7. Max
8. Elliott
9. Emma
10. Sophia
11. Daniel
12. Eve
13. Sloane
14. Eleanor
15. Owen
16. Aislinn
17. Cassie
18. Lea (We’d like to send an envelope of love to our two friends who moved on in December)
19. Marina

Teachers: Laurie, Lisa, Melinda, and Tami

Breakfast was whole wheat toast and orange slices.  Lunch was ham and cheese on wheat, green beans, and applesauce.  Wee Sprouts are cukes.  And snack will be peanut butter rice cakes.

Stay warm!

Tami

Happy Monday!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We were so happy to see the sunshine today! We have missed it!

Eren started off playing magnatiles in the kitchen. All of his friends wanted to join him.

Our Monday was full of smiles and laughter.

The gross motor area was the happening place to be this afternoon. Lucy had a blast going up through the habitrail.

Nora and Saskia soon joined her! Lucy and Nora were laughing together. Nora started jumping and Lucy tried to imitate .

Eren got out the sensory circles. Friends took turns stepping on them while feeling the different patterns with their feet and hands as well!

We ended our afternoon with a snack! Friends made sure to get it just right.

For breakfast, children had cheerios and oranges. Lunch consisted of homemade macaroni and cheese with whole grain noodles, mixed veggies, and pears. PM snack was cheddar cheese and whole wheat crackers.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Outside it is a wintery wonderland.  Thanks to Lindsay and Finn, our backyard truly IS a WINTER WONDERLAND filled with snow caves and sledding hills!  Thanks not only for the shoveling, but for taking it a step further and creating some cool winter art and discovery areas.  We sooooo appreciate your generous help in our outdoor learning environment! 

Also, another shout out to Tim Ramer, our north neighbor who has our section of 29th street looking like the best plowed street/sidewalks in all of Riverpark.  Love that man!

Inside, since it was too cold to enjoy any outside time today (tomorrow looks warmer), Melinda led interested children through a flower exploration of old dried out tulips to planting new amaryllis pots.  There were many steps to this process of digging up the old tulips and preparing the pots for the new plants.  Mel adding in measurement concepts as the children determined smallest to largest and used a ruler to start tracking the amaryllis growth for 8 weeks.

 

Some quotes from the un-potting and planting process…

“It looks like a cake!”

“The ball of a tree was bigger than me once.”

“Ahh, look at the baby bulb!”

“Look, there’s no root on this one!”

“It looks like hair.”

‘’I’m exhausted”  (I guess that makes sense, the activity lasted for over an hour for which most of the participating children CHOSE to stay at the table for the duration)

“It’s the medium size.”

“Ohhh, I got to the bottom of it” (mixing the potting soil cake with water)

“Let’s measure across.” 

“That one [bulb] is lower, but the dirt is the same.”

For breakfast the children had warm malto- meal cereal with applesauce.  WeeSprouts were cucumbers.  Lunch was my homemade whole wheat mac-n-cheese, mixed veg and apple slices. Snack will be goldfish and peanuts.

Have a wonderful day!

Tami

Happy Friday!

Here are some pictures that were taken today!

For breakfast, children had toast and pears. Lunch consisted of pasta with marinara sauce, pears, and peas. PM snack was hard boiled eggs and pretzels.

Have a great weekend! Hope everyone stays warm and safe!

We ended our day putting up our handprint banner! A sensorial experience with our hands was the focal point of our morning!

We were so happy to get outside today! While some of the snow drifts on the playground were almost as tall as our Wee-est Wees, everyone had a fun, warm and safe time being outside!

In the warmer classroom, we assembled an electric train. Lisa led a small group exploration on naming different scents. She also invited our older friends to roll dice labeled B-A-T. They tallied the number of letters they rolled.

Breakfast: Cheerios and bananas. Lunch: Ham and turkey rolls, filled with cream cheese, peas and bananas. Snack: Homemade rice pudding and apple slices.

Have a safe and warm weekend.

Laurie

Good Afternoon!

Lucy, Maya, and Tate are enjoying getting to know Henri! It’s interesting to observe friends in their environment along with watching new friends adjust to the Wee Wee environment!

 

Stories, stories, stories!

For breakfast, children had eggs and oranges. Lunch consisted of cheesy rice, green beans, and oranges. PM snack was graham crackers with soy butter.

Have a great evening!

WELCOME EMMA! Today we welcome Emma to the older Wee classroom!

One day, just after we returned from our winter break, Elizabeth came to school brimming with excitement about Batman, Robin and Batgirl. Many friends shared her excitement with these interesting superheroes, who model themselves on the, also very interesting, BAT! After sharing lots of information about Batman, we rushed over to the bookshelf and pulled out the lovely Stellaluna by Janell Cannon. We read about this bat pup who lost her mother and joined a family of birds. After the book, we compared Stellaluna, the real bat, to Batman.

Well, our interest in bats continues. Today:

• We explored what it feels like to BE a bat by hanging upside down on the trapeze.
• We listened like a bat by putting on a blindfold and guessing where the bat sound was coming from.
• We sang a batty finger rhyme, using our fingers to count 1-5.
• We created more bats for our bat cave
• We hung our bat cave up

We continue to listen as our friend’s passions evolve.

Ellie has become batty over Uno.

ALL of our friends go batty creating lodging under the habitrail.

And everyone is batty for FAST songs. As song leader, Finn used to tempos to instruct his friends. They started singing (and moving the wheels on the bus) with a slow tempo and ended with a batty tempo! Whew!

The Wee Dance is bats. And a little batty. That makes us happy.

Have a great day.

Laurie

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Bagels, cream cheese and bananas. Lunch: Brown rice with cheddar cheese, orange slices and celery sticks. Snack: Yogurt and apples.

Welcome back!

After a few days off because of our lovely Indiana weather, we got right back into the swing of things!

We officially welcomed our newest friend Henri today! He had a fantastic first day as a Wee Wee!

The habitrail was the happenin’ place to be this morning. For our younger friends, it challenges us. Our older friends set the example for our babes. It’s a lovely thing .

Since we had a late start, breakfast was not served. Lunch was pasta with marinara sauce, mixed veggies, and mixed fresh fruit. PM snack was cheddar cheese slices and crackers.

Have a lovely evening. Stay warm!

-Mindy