Good Afternoon!

Our PREK1 sign in and group time was centered around the story, ‘The True Story of the Three Little Pigs’. For sign in, children had to write their name under the character that went to each pig’s house in the story. During group, we talked about characters as well as the setting and events that occurred. We talked about the terms in general but also how they relate to the story.

PREK2: Today we introduced the idea of grouping numbers.  We had practiced the concept during activities this morning, then we practiced at group time.  We read the book “Ten Little Fish”.  When we were finished we chose a group of fish to count on the board.  We put our name next to the group we counted. 

This morning at our welcome activity we had three baskets of ten objects.  We worked on counting ten objects from each basket and then counted that we had three groups of ten.

We also worked on a number groups project this morning using craft materials.  We each picked three cards and glued them to our paper.  We then picked groups of objects to glue to each card to make our number groups.  Younger kids worked on making three groups of three.  Some of the older kids were able to make multiples of three by gluing three objects to the first card and then adding three more to each group consecutively. 

Breakfast: Peanut butter on whole wheat bread with apple slices.

Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with shredded pork and butter, fresh strawberries/oranges, and fresh green beans.

PM snack: Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh bell peppers/tomatoes.

Link to photos: 2023-09-25

Enjoy the rest of your afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Happy Friday!

This morning Miss Tina brought the waffle blocks and the big plastic bugs out from the kitchen for us to build with and explore.

We then went to the front area to work with sorting the shapes of the shape houses by placing them in their shape on the roof.

We then headed outside the enjoy many of our favorite activities that involved climbing, digging, pushing, riding and scooping.

The babies enjoyed tossing and rolling the balls around and playing with the animals.

Breakfast:  Whole grain brown rice cakes with cream cheese and fresh cantaloupe.

Lunch:  Hummus, whole grain wheat bread, fresh cantaloupe and cucumbers.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain Ritz crackers and Colby-Jack block cheese slices.

Wee Sprouts:  Red bell peppers.

Have a great weekend!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures: 2023-09-22

Happy Friday!  We hope you enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and bananas.

Lunch: Cheese quesadillas on whole wheat tortillas, fresh pineapple/pears, and fresh cucumbers.

PM Snack: Whole wheat crackers with block cheddar cheese.

Wee sprouts: Fresh carrots and bell peppers.

Link to Photos:2023-09-22

Have a lovely weekend!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good afternoon!

We engaged in a sensory art activity in the kitchen with Miss Bekah this morning. We were given some shaving cream and then some drops of watercolor for us to mix around with our hands. Miss Bekah then helped us place a paper on top of our mixture to make a ‘print.’

Eleanor, just like the rest of the babies, loves trying to climb the reading steps. One day they’ll be able to join their older friends at the top!

We were very helpful to Miss Tami while we were outside. Several friends helped pick weeds from the rock area and then helped take them over to waste bin. Eden enjoyed some outside time today and spent it with her brother.

Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios with fresh oranges.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with red beans, apple slices, and orange bell pepper.

Afternoon Snack: Sunflowers seeds with whole wheat Triscuits crackers.

Have a beautiful evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2023-09-21

Good Afternoon!

For sign in, our PREK1 friends had to sort shapes into two groups: zero sided shapes and four sided shapes. We sorted the shapes by similarities and afterwards, children identified the shape and wrote their name next to it.

We hit on our fourth and final text genre today in PREK1 group: fairytales! We read, ‘Cinderella’ and talked about the characteristics of fairytales. A few friends shared other fairytale books and movies such as Beauty and the Beast and Frozen.

PREK2:  Today we read the story “Bear Feels Scared” at group.  We each chose what would help us most for feel better: Ask for a hug, talk about it with a teacher/parent or play with friends.  We put our name up under our choice on on the board.

At our welcome activity this morning we practiced different ways of sorting.  Arthur enjoyed using his small tongs to find the smallest bead and put it in the smallest jar then doing this with medium and large.  Ryan, who was looking on, was happy to jump in and help when Arthur was looking for the various sizes.  They worked together to solve the size puzzle!  Some older friends chose to sort by color.  Nesta and Hannah asked for more and more containers as they found they had a complex assortment of colors to categorize!

In the sensory bin this morning friends enjoyed exploring ice blocks of different shapes and sizes.  We used tongs to try the slippery challenge of putting them in order from large to small.  William said he wanted to turn the ice into water and tried several ways of doing this, including chopping the ice into pieces.  We settled on an eye dropper to pour water over the ice, which was warmer and helped to melt it.  It was a fun way to experiment with water properties. 

Breakfast– Toasted oatmeal squares with banana.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded chicken and butter, fresh oranges/banana, and fresh pepper/cucumber.

PM snack– Sunflower/pumpkin seeds with whole wheat crackers

Wee Sprout– Fresh pepper/cucumber.

Have a great night.

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2023-09-21

Good Afternoon!  Enjoy some of the pictures from our day.

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

Lunch:  Farm fresh scrambled eggs, whole grain wheat English muffin with cream cheese, fresh green bell peppers and oranges.

Afternoon Snack:  White corn tortilla chips and refried beans.

Wee Sprouts:  Cucumbers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures:  2023-09-20

Good Afternoon!

We continue talking about text genre’s in PREK1 group. For sign in, children were given two books and they had to figure out which book was the fiction story.

During group time, it was all about poetry! We read poems from the book, ‘It’s Raining Pigs and Noodle’. We loved the rhyming addition that we noticed in the poems and most of them were quite funny!

PREK 2: Today we read the story “What should Darla Do?”  The book talked about different ways that someone could solve a problem.  The kids helped choose what Darla should do when faced with different situations.  Then they got to hear how different solutions might work…or not work in Darla’s favor.  If Darla chose to push someone off her seat she might get pushed back and not get to enjoy being at the table in the first place.  If she chose a different seat,  Darla would get to have a nice time sharing in the table’s activity…

Since yesterday was about tiny pointillism painting,  today was about big and bold painting.  We looked at the artist Mark Rothko’s work who made large expressive color block paintings.  We talked about how in the book the paintings looked small but in real life they are the size of the entire wall.  After we looked at examples of the style, we worked together to create some ourselves.  We blocked off sections with tape and spread the paint in our area.  We talked about how looking at large blocks of color like in Rothko’s work often evokes emotions.  We talked about how the different colors made us feel.  Some of us felt like the red color made us feel happy and others said it was the green color that was happy to them.  We talked about how different colors can evoke different emotions in different people.  This is part of the reason we all might have different color preferences.  We all experience what we see a little differently. 

While setting up, one of our friends chose to come into the art center and wait for the painting project to start.  Another friend asked her to go play something else and she said “no, I want to do this.”  When her friend asked why, she responded “Because I’ve never done this before”…  A beautiful way to approach experience that young children possess such simple but profound insight about. 

 

At our morning welcome activity we worked on our grouping and counting skills.  We built groups of 1-10 cubes counting as many as we could based on our age and ability.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with fresh pears

Lunch: Scrambled eggs with fresh carrots, cantaloupe and orange slices

PM snack:  Popped corn with raisins

Wee Sprouts: Fresh peppers and cucumbers

Link to photos:2023-09-20

Have a great afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good afternoon!

This morning our friends danced to “Listen and Move” by Greg and Steve. We listened to the prompts like “skating” and then followed along.

Some of our friends engaged with the Legos Duplos and used them to build towers.

We then made our way outside to do some of our favorite activities like playing in the sandbox and taking turns going down the slide.

Breakfast: Whole grain Kix cereal with fresh oranges.

Lunch: Whole wheat tortillas with peanut butter, 1/2 stick of mozzarella cheese, apple slices, and carrots.

Afternoon Snack: Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and pears.

Wee Sprout: Green bell pepper.

Have a wonderful evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2023-09-19

Good Afternoon!

PREK1 friends made their way to the sign in board as they had to determine which group had the most stars. All of the group members were able to look at each group and determine which group had the most, without counting the stars.

K.NS.9: Use correctly the words for comparison, including: one and many; none, some and all; more and less; most and least; and equal to, more than and less than.

We’re continuing to talk about text genres in PREK1 group. On today’s agenda: nonfiction! We read two nonfiction stories: Apples and Tomatoes. We talked about how nonfiction stories are about real things and often offer facts about real life, such as food! We can’t wait to learn about the other two text genres later in the week.

K.RL.3.1: Recognize familiar narrative text genres (e.g. fiction, nonfiction, fairytales, poems).

PREK2: In group we read the story “How Are You Peeling?” which talked about many different emotions.  Repetition of these ideas in different ways helps to create a solid foundation of understanding for our early preschoolers.  After the story, everyone thought of what made them feel better when they were experiencing difficult emotions. 

In the art center today we created “Pointillism” paintings.  We looked at photos from an art book by Georges Seurat.  We looked very carefully at the paintings to see how they ere constructed only of tiny dots.  Many of us marveled at the artists ability to create an image just from dots.  Since we are talking about size comparisons in our curriculum,  we learned that something like a large and complex painting can be made of simple tiny dots  We each got the opportunity to try one of our own.   A group of older friends got creative, trying different ways to make marks with the pencil.  They all settled on a technique they tried using the pencil to roll across the dots.  This created an interesting effect.  The colors smeared but the dots remained…It was great to see the group so intuitively understanding the experimental nature of art.

During our welcome activity we did a sorting project with stones.  At the first tray we tried sorting the stones by size in bowls that were small medium and large.  At the second tray we tried making “Cairns” stacking the stones and balancing them to make short medium and tall stacks. 

…This was a great lesson in applied physics as well :).

Breakfast: Kix cereal with fresh bananas.

Lunch: Peanut butter on whole wheat bread,  fresh orange slices/apples, and bell peppers/cucumber.

PM Snack: Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh cucumbers and peppers.

Link to Photos: 2023-09-19

Enjoy the afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good Afternoon!

A few friends began their morning playing with the trucks and airplane and driving them around on the carpet.

We then headed to the kitchen to work on puzzles that matched our skill level.  We matched our piece with the pictures on our puzzle board.  If our puzzle board didn’t have a pictures we worked on our problem solving skills turn the piece to see if it fit in the space until we found the one that worked.

We also engaged in building with pegs in our pegboards.  We filled the holes with a variety of different colored pegs or built a tower using all the same color and a variety of colors.

We then headed outside to enjoy another beautiful morning.  We climbed to the top of the climbing house, sat on the dump truck in the sandbox or played with the trucks by the little house.  Since it is Monday, we got to see the trash truck go down the road and empty our bin.  Eleanor also got outside this morning to enjoy her toys on her blanket.

Breakfast:  Whole grain wheat toast with butter and cinnamon/sugar mixture and fresh apple slices.

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat macaroni with shredded pork, fresh strawberries/watermelon and peas.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt and graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts:  Cucumbers.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures:  2023-09-18