Owen, Kai, Vivian, Simon, Marat, Arleigh, Annie and Ada spent their morning at the farm. On the ride over, Marat taught his friends “How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?”

When we arrived Tami and Farmer Charlotte bartered eggs, honey and apple cider vinegar while Wee Friends began their explorations.

    

Next, we headed over the chicken coop to watch Joseph gather eggs.

We also saw Taffy drinking water.

We watched a chicken inside a coop and found several underneath the trailer.

Charlotte captured a small chicken and Wee Friends enjoyed petting her.

 

We moved to another coop and Kai retrieved an egg.

We shared our table scraps with the chickens!

Arleigh found a feather and shared it with her friends.

Wee Friends brushed and fed both Ruby II and Taffy the horse!

Farmer Charlotte taught Wee Friends how to train Ruby II to “walk…whoa.”

After our time with the animals, we headed to the woods to create drama.

As we walked, each Wee Friend collected a favorite jewel from nature.

We found a stage space, gathered into a circle and each friend described their jewel and also, what it reminded them of. Using these natural jewels, the earth and the ideas they generated, we guided the actors through a highly imaginative improvisational story involving helicopters, umbrellas, parachutes, planting a seed and a very loud rainstorm. We began it with a song celebrating the earth and its jewels and ended it by parachuting out of our helicopter. It made sense to us! In fact—it was glorious!

Ada began her farm day rolling down the hills. When we asked our friends to gently lay down (and leave) their collection of nature’s jewels in the grass before getting in the Weehicle Ada said “Can I lay down, too?” The rest of the WF Jewels piled in the Weehicle for the trip home.

Back in the classroom, Lisa and Melinda worked with friends on an egg matching game. They counted jelly beans and charted their discoveries. They practiced concert songs and enjoyed this glorious day on the playground.

For breakfast the we had corn chex and bananas.  For lunch we had farm fresh egg salad on whole wheat, corn, mixed fruit.

Have a great day!

Laurie

We began our day studying road signs. First, Laurie laid out a variety of colored signs. When Alexandra matched a red stop sign from our block set to the paper road signed, Laurie threw out the multiple colored signs and created matches for each miniature sign. We studied the color of the sign, the shape and the message.

Kai and Viv took the study a step further and using blank sheets of paper, replicated the symbol and words on the sign with markers.

At the art table, friends joined Lisa for construction paper egg decorations. Using tissue paper, foam letters, feathers and straws, friends glued away.

On the oval rug, Melinda worked with a small group of friends on creating runways with the balancing blocks. Friends gathered Little People into an airport and Pilots Finn, Umi and Alexandra worked with Simon, the Air Traffic Controller to load passengers into the planes, taxi to the runway and take off.

We finished our morning with a long walk through the neighborhood. Friends identified many of the signs we studied this morning. They were engaged in searching for and observing road signs for the whole duration of our 30 minute walk. Elliott heard a choo-choo train and saw an airplane.  Nate noticed every yard sign. He also always enjoys pointing out the church bells that tell us when it’s time to go in for lunch. Alexandra and Umi found a pink tree!

Our FABS this week are Literacy: K.1.21-Identify common signs and symbols. K.2.5-Identify the order (first, last) of information. Math: K.6.1-Choose the approach, materials and strategies to use in solving problems. K.6.2 Use tools such as objects or drawings to model problems.

Parent/Child Communication Starters:

• What is the name of the street we live on?
• Is the color of our street sign green or red or lavender?
• Why is there a bicycle on that road sign?
• How many passengers can fit into an airplane?

Our Wee Sprouts today are cucumber and radish slices. Breakfast was Total and bananas. For lunch we are serving whole wheat pita sandwiches with hummus, cucumber slices and cantaloupe.

Have a great day.

We pulled out the bunny ears and baskets this morning and the first thing we did was learn a hopping song.

“Once I saw a little bunny go hop, hop, hop,

And I said little bunny, please stop, stop, stop,

But the bunny just smiled and away he hopped,

Over to the pond…then the bunny went plop!!!”

 

At the art table, we pulled out the royal purple Play-doh and set out multi colored eggs for exploration.

 

 

Along with the all the great fine motor and imagination building Play-Do offers, we love it because it builds community in our classroom! For an hour and a half this morning, a shifting group of friends sat, talked, shared and created together. This tremendous exercise in cooperation serves them well in all areas of their lives!

Jane and Annie continued to enjoy the new airplane game. They also worked with Lisa counting and sorting large and small chicks into the corresponding egg.

 

Simon was thrilled to have his buddy Owen to work with today.

Best buddies Nate and Finn worked together at the workbench. This work ended in a mini duet at the window. Nate sang the Notre Dame fight song and Finn belted out “Twinkle” and “Jackhammer Joy”. Nate used a whistle (piece of wood) and Finn, a guitar (magnifying glass) to accompany themselves.

Elliott set up a cockpit on the oval rug and invited the teachers to fly with him.

After lunch our older friends began a study of their street address. We started by asking the question “What is the name of your street?” We identified each friend’s street name and house address and then they drew a detailed picture of their house. We will send these home in time for the holiday weekend, for those friends who may need to leave directions for a bunny visit.

Our Wee Sprouts today are carrots and tomatoes. Breakfast was peanut butter on whole wheat toast and pear slices. For lunch, we served whole wheat pasta with marinara, mixed veggies and fruit salad. For pm snack, we will serve Hummingbird cake (banana/pineapple bread).

Have a great Monday.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity…and some scarce see nature at all.  But, to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.  ~ William Blake

Wow! It is such a beautiful day to be outside! The younger children enjoyed a trip to the farm.  Today our focus was on helping the younger group become acclimated to the animals, sounds and smells of the farm.  Additionally, there are more responsibilities to listen and respond to adults and peers in this environment. 

Before we exited the Weehicle, we had a short discussion about our expectations so that everyone could stay safe and have an great time at the farm.  We talked about 3 rules to follow: 1. We stay with a teacher and our group 2. We ask a teacher before touching equipment and animals. 3. We leave the dogs (if out) alone to do their farm jobs.  Our time was spent reinforcing these concepts to build skills for future farm trips.

After getting everyone set up with boots and proper sweatshirts, we took a few minutes to enjoy the small apple and pear trees.  Then we walked around and allowed the younger kids to get used to having chickens, geese, duck and turkeys near to them.  When you are 3 years old, these are big, noisy creatures!

 

 

We laughed as Elliott spent most of his trip in the above position; with his finger pointing at something he found exciting!  One of the older farm boys caught a chicken for our friends to pet.

We were able, even with our younger group, to help in some ways.  We:

Fed the chickens our WF scraps.  They were very happy! (This was a great chance to reinforce listening.  The chickens are gathered very close to us eating, but a farm rule is that we respectfully allow the chickens to eat without bothering them.  This was soooo tempting, but the children did learn to cooperate.)

We helped clean out and replenish with hay the nest boxes for the 2 chicken houses.  The kids also worked together to move the large box into the chicken area.  Additionally, they fed the chickens  by mixing the 2 grains together, putting it in the bowls and putting it in the cages.

 

 

 

 

The kids were mesmerized by watching the horsed eat their morning hay. 

After this, we took a nice long walk to explore the woods and prairie.  We stopped to look at bugs, listen to sounds, smell the air and pick flowers. 

We only had one child fall asleep on the way back to WF and we had no upsets from overstimulated or overtired kids.  All in all, a success!

Back at WF, here are some highlights: The felt board was used as an airport runway, the airplane library books were extremely popular in small group and individually, several children worked on a “thank you” to the South Bend Regional Airport,  several children worked together on math activities and crazy eight card game, and Annie initiated a letter path game and other friends joined in on this.

We had two observers in to work through an assessment tool that they will be using in the future with other programs.  (It was  not about WF, but rather, how well does the assessment tool work in a real environment.)  We will have two more observers tomorrow.  WF likes to help out the Early Childhood Community when we can

For lunch we had scrambled spinach, ham and eggs , frozen blueberries, corn, and 1/2 of a strawberry cupcake (baked by Marty’s daughter Breania). 

Enjoy your day!

Tami