Good Afternoon!

PREK1 kiddos kicked off their Wednesday by completing a sign in task that focused on sorting items based on similar characteristics. We talked about how we can sort things by size, color, and shape and today, we focused on sorting shapes based on color! Each friend came to the board where they chose one card. They flipped it over, looked at their shape, and sorted it based on color.

Later on in PREK1 group, we read ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’. Throughout the week, we’ve been reading books from different genres. Monday called for a fiction story and today, we introduced Fairy Tales! We talked about different characters that are in fairytale stories and throughout the book, a few friends raised their hands to share characters from other fairytales that they have read.

K.DA.1: Identify, sort, and classify objects by size, number, and other attributes. Identify objects that do not belong to a particular group and explain the reasoning used.

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

We enjoyed some spontaneous child lead learning experiences this morning!  Ryan and Arthur wanted to use stethoscopes to hook two baskets together in the housekeeping area.  Talking about the interest with them, it became apparent that we could build upon it!  After looking through our materials, we created a building station encouraging ways to hook things together in inventive ways.  We provided strips of fabric, clothes pins, cardboard squares and TP rolls.  The kids spent all morning experimenting with what they could make!

In the art center a similar situation occurred where one of our creative friends wanted to cut up envelopes for collage.  She shared that she was interested in the patterned paper inside the envelope.  In response we set out a variety of patterned colored paper, providing an array of paper collaging materials!  At Wee Friends we try to listen to what kids are telling us about their interests through their play.  Our job is often simply to offer avenues for further exploration, opening more doors for meaningful learning!

PREK2:  During group today we read the story “Ruby Has a Worry”. Before we read the story, we talked about things that made us worried.  As a group, we found that trying new food, monsters, the dark, spiders and daddy long legs were some of the things that make us feel worried.  We found that as we shared, that several other friends shared the same worry.  After reading the story and talking as a group, we found that sharing a worry makes it smaller!

Breakfast: Overnight oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh nectarines.

Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs with whole wheat flatbread, fresh pineapple/apples/oranges, and fresh snap peas/cucumber/pepper.

PM Snack: Hummus with blue corn chips.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh cucumbers and snap peas.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-25

Good Afternoon!  Another cold and rainy morning, that kept us inside, but we were busy.

We looked out at the rain out the window, engaged with a stuffed animal, built with our new shape blocks with our artwork inside, climbed on the habi-trail, and fed a baby doll a bottle.

We then headed into the kitchen to draw with markers.  We filled our papers full of colorful continuous lines and made small dots with the tips of our markers.  We filled both sides of our papers with our drawings.

We then headed out to engage with the rhythm sticks and shaker instruments.  We followed along to “Tap Your Sticks” by Hap Palmer with our rhythm sticks. When we shook our rain stick instruments, it sounded like it was raining inside, just like it was outside.

We then engaged with our object permanence boxes and watched our ball or coin disappear in the hole or slot and then reappear in the drawer or tray.  We also worked our fine motor skills as we stacked our shapes onto their stacking pole.

Breakfast:  Oatmeal with cinnamon/sugar mixture and fresh nectarine slices.

Lunch:  Farm fresh scrambled eggs with shredded mozzarella cheese, whole wheat English muffins with butter, fresh cantaloupe and red mini sweet bell pepper.

Afternoon Snack: Fresh guacamole with blue corn tortilla chips and 1/2 mozzarella cheese stick.

Wee Sprouts: Cucumber.

Have a wonderful evening!

WWF Teachers

Link to pictures: 2025-09-25

Good afternoon!

Enjoy some pictures from our (rainy) day!

Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios cereal with fresh nectarine slices.

Lunch: Whole grain wheat tortilla with peanut butter, 1/2 mozzarella cheese stick, fresh watermelon and red mini sweet pepper.

Afternoon Snack: Whole grain wheat bagel with cream cheese and fresh tangerines.

Wee Sprout: Cucumbers.

Have a beautiful evening!

WWF Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-24

Good Afternoon!

We explored sizes in an open ended way at the circle table this morning!  In the center of the table, there were three sizes of each shape and each gem.  Many friends chose to create imaginative play scenarios, making and decorating cookies or treats of different shapes and sizes.  We were able to casually talk about size, shape and how they were categorized through child lead play.

Please enjoy some more phots from our day!

Breakfast: Chex cereal with fresh pears

Lunch: Peanut butter on whole wheat bread with fresh cucumbers/carrots and pineapple/apple slices

PM Snack: Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese

Wee Sprouts: Fresh carrots and cucumbers

Enjoy the rest of your day!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures:2024-09-24

Happy Fall!

We began our morning engaged in a variety of activities.  We danced with bean bags to the Beanie Bag Dance song by Greg and Steve and sat in or stacked the BounceBlocks to stand on at the habi-trail.

Today we switched out the sensory bin to our Fall bin of corn/black bean/pine cones/corn cobs/ and a gourd mixture.  Miss Bekah talked to the friends about the colors of the corn/ beans and pine cones.  We were busy scooping and pouring the mixture with a variety of different spoons and cups.

We then headed outside with jackets or a sweatshirt to play on this much cooler than we are used to Fall morning.  We scooped in the wet sand, went down the slide, worked on our balance skills on the balance beam and walked up the rocks between the slides.

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

Lunch:  Whole grain penne pasta with shredded chicken, fresh pineapple slices and cooked broccoli.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt and graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts:  Mini sweet peppers.

Have a marvelous evening!

WWF Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-23

Happy Monday!

*Just a reminder as it is suddenly beginning to feel more seasonally fall, we go outside for an hour to an hour and a half every morning, so please send a jacket or sweatshirt if the morning temp is on the chilly side. 

We kicked off a new week and for our PREK1 sign in, we started talking about comparison words such as least and most. Children had to look at three different groupings of stars and determine which group had the most stars. Katherine talked it out by saying, “Well this group right here has only one star. This group has one-two-three stars. This group has one-two-three-four-five stars…this one has the most!”.

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 love reading books in different genres in our classroom. This week, we’ll focus on the different genres and specifics that set each genre apart. Today, we read, ‘Alexander and the Wind Up Mouse’. Before we started reading it, I talked about what the ‘fiction’ genre is and what we look for in books to determine whether they are fiction or not. Very quickly into the story, we were able to identify the book as fiction because as PREK1 kiddos shared, “Real mice can’t talk!”.

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

We explored some sorting activities this morning at the round table and in the sensory bin.  At the round table we had four trays set up with different things to sort by color.  The sensory bin contained magnetic wands and different colored magnetic chips, encouraging friends to sort the chips into jars using magnetism.

Arthur and Ryan have acquired quite a following with their daily cricket hunt in the garden.  Everyone has become very interested in watching them and trying to catch crickets themselves.  Arthur has enjoyed showing off his crickets and sharing his cricket hunting strategies…

PREK2:  Our MACK curriculum this week focuses on teaching children to manage strong emotions constructively.  Today during group we read some calming breath exercises from the book “Breathe With Me”.  We read that we could try belly breathing or balloon breath when we are trying to calm our bodies for rest or bedtime and when saying goodbye to Mommies and Daddies.  After the story, we practiced the sorting skills we have been working on today.  We each came up to the board and chose a paper square to sort by color.

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with peanut butter and banana.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with black beans, fresh watermelon/banana, and fresh broccoli/green beans.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprout– Fresh green beans/broccoli.

Have a lovely night!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-23

Happy Friday!

This morning a friend requested dancing with bean bags.  The songs we danced to were: Beanie Bag Dance and Bean Bag Boogie by Greg and Steve, and Bean Bag Bop by Jack Hartmann.

We then worked on our stacking skills with our shape stackers, stacking our shapes together on the pole.  We also worked stacking our stacking bowls together by size.

We then headed into the kitchen to paint with animals.  We used the hooves of the animals to walk around our papers to create different prints and used a variety of colors.

We then headed outside.  We tossed and kicked a ball, rode and pushed bikes up and down the hill and rode the teeter totters.

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

Lunch:  Ham lunch meat on whole grain wheat bread, fresh apple slices and orange mini sweet peppers.

Afternoon Snack:  Goldfish crackers and mozzarella cheese stick.

Wee Sprouts:  Mini cucumbers.

Have a wonderful weekend!

WWF Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-20

Happy Friday!

To wrap up our week with PREK1 sign in, we used one of our favorite books to help demonstrate the connections we’ve made to the illustrations in stories and the words written by the author.

We used a short story from a ‘Frog and Toad’ book titled, ‘A Swim’. There were five excerpts from the story. I read each child one notecard and they had to look at the pile of illustrations to see which illustration matched the words I read to them.

Later on in group, we read the exact same story to see what exactly took place in the story between Frog and Toad!

K.RL.4.1: Describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear.

Our MACK curriculum is crucial to our Wee Friends philosophy on how to treat ourselves and others. It’s something we’ve always done but several years back, Tami created our MACK curriculum which is a 12 week cycle with 5 main areas that focus on social emotional learning goals. This weeks MACK focus was about learning to recognize and name emotions in ourselves and others.

This morning we offered a “playdough emotions” activity.  Friends were invited to explore how emotions look by recreating them in blank faces using balls of colored play dough.  We tried making several different emotions with our face.  The kids were amazingly in tune with facial expressions and being able to reproduce them.  They added extra details beyond what we expected like tears on a sad face, red cheeks or teeth showing on an angry face, and expressive eye brows!  We have some very emotionally aware children!

Happy                               Scared                                Sad                                 Angry

We hope you enjoy some more pictures from our day!

Breakfast– Brown rice cakes with cream cheese and banana.

Lunch– Peanut butter on whole wheat bread, fresh watermelon, and fresh snap peas/cucumber.

PM snack– Goldfish and string cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh snap peas/cucumber.

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-20

Good Afternoon!

For PREK1 sign in, we continued to dive into shapes and today, we sorted them based on size! Each child came up to the board where they chose a card from the bottom. They categorized their shape as ‘little’ or ‘big’.

K.G.2: Compare shapes using informal language to describe their similarities, differences, and parts (e.g., number of sides, length of sides, and vertices).

Later on in PREK1 group, we read, ‘When Sophie Gets Angry..Really Really Angry’ which is from our MACK collection.

Yesterday, children worked on constructing a new shape out of multiple smaller shapes when given an image to follow. Today, children were given a card with a new shape to create but only were given the shapes to use, not the actual instructions. They had to take the shapes and create their new shape by themselves (which is much more challenging!).

K.G.4: Compose simple geometric shapes to form larger shapes (e.g., create a rectangle composed of two triangles).

This morning we offered a shape hunt in the classroom to another group of Wee Friends.  This time we searched for circles.  A group of four scavenged for circles checking every area of the classroom.  After they gathered a basket full of circle shapes they used paint to add a circle layer to our shape process painting!

For our welcome activity this morning, we offered three-dimensional shape trays.  We talked about how shapes like squares, triangles and circles can become three- dimensional shapes like cylinders, cones, pyramids, cubes and spheres.  It was fun to see what we could build with our three dimensional- shapes

PREK2:  Today during group we read the story “Glad Monster Sad Monster”.  We talked about each emotion in the story and decided whether it felt good or difficult when we felt that emotion.  We talked about things we could do when we were feeling an emotion that felt hard for us. 

Breakfast– Puffins cereal with banana.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded turkey, fresh cantaloupe/pears, and fresh pepper/cucumber.

PM snack– Trail mix with sunflower/pumpkin seeds, raisins and granola.

Wee Sprout– Fresh pepper/cucumber.

Have a wonderful night!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-19

Good afternoon!

We danced with rhythm sticks this morning. We marched around the front circle while listening to “Ants Go Marching.” Then we sat together and followed along to “Tap Your Sticks.”

We then made our way to the kitchen with Miss Bekah to engage with puzzles. We all worked on completing 3 or 4 piece puzzles.

We went outside and drew with chalk on the chalkboard, rode teeter-totters or peeked through the gaps of the log house at a teacher.

Breakfast: Whole grain Kix cereal with fresh tangerines.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with red beans, pear slices and mini cucumbers.

Afternoon Snack: Whole grain Wheat Thins crackers with peanut butter.

Wee Sprout: Red bell pepper.

Have an amazing evening!

WWF Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-09-19