Good Afternoon!

To start our day, the kindergarteners and a few older preschoolers played a few rounds of community helper bingo! Friends worked together to see what helpers were present on their bingo board. I gave them clues for a specific community helper and if they had that helper on their board, they placed a red circle over that square!

Social Studies: K.2.1 Give examples of people who are community helpers (inside the classroom and outside the classroom) and describe how they help us.

Afterwards, Mack got out a glass jar that was full of colorful gems and asked Sophia, “Do you want to make a color pattern with me?!”

They sat and separated the gems by color before creating their own color patterns.

Children took turns coming to the art table to participate in an art activity! They got to choose different trees to put on their paper and if they chose to, add white paint using a q-tip that represented snow! Every single piece was different and unique to that specific child—we put them up this afternoon on the magnet boards and they look spectacular! It was awesome to watch the process and reasoning behind why children did what they did when deciding how they wanted their art piece to end up.

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

-Joseph Chilton Pearce

Breakfast– Corn Chex and banana.

Lunch– Hummus on whole wheat tortilla, fresh pineapple/banana, and fresh peppers/cucumber.

PM snack– Whole wheat bagel with peanut butter and block cheddar cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh pepper/cucumber.

Have a fantastic night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/5

Happy Monday and Happy New Year!

We hope everyone had a lovely winter vacation!

There was a ton of re-connection that happened this morning. Friends were asking each other, “What’d you do over break?” or “What’d you get for Christmas?!”—it was so nice to get back into the swing of things after a few weeks of family time.

It took no time at all for children to get back into their routine. Pairs of children scurried off to a loft for some alone time or got out puzzles to do together.

We had a fantastic first day back—we’re ready for 2021!

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with butter and fresh pears/banana.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with shredded beef and butter, fresh cantaloupe, and fresh cucumber/snap peas.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with fresh oranges.

Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumber/snap peas.

Have a wonderful evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 1/4

Good afternoon and Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed your holiday season.

Friends were very excited to see one another today and had a great day engaging with one another and all the classroom activities.

Breakfast: Whole wheat butter toast with cinnamon and apples.

Lunch: Whole wheat noodle’s with butter and shredded beef, carrots and pears.

Snack: Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts: Red peppers.

Have a fantastic night.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtTCDmdhjIulkN87kp8gqp-yuk1E4w?e=0xGq7S

Happy Friday!

As we end this year that was 2020, we are left with a full and grateful heart. This year has brought about challenges and new aspects that we’ve had to adapt to (hello masks) and through it all, our families have been understanding and helpful beyond measure. One of the best aspects of this career is forming trusting and lasting relationships with our families. We are SO thankful for you.

We hope that you and your family have a healthy, happy, and safe Christmas vacation and we can’t wait to see you in 2021!

Breakfast– Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and banana.

Lunch– Homemade english muffin pizzas (shredded cheese, ham, and pepperoni as pizza toppings), fresh cantaloupe/banana, and fresh carrots/snap peas.

PM snack– Goldfish and string cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots/snap peas.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 12/18

Good Afternoon!

Check out our pictures from today!

Breakfast– Corn Chex and fresh cantaloupe.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded chicken and cheese, fresh oranges/banana, and fresh green beans/snap peas.

PM snack– Wheat thins and sunflower seeds.

Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumber/green beans.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 12/17

Good Afternoon.

Tomorrow will be a pajama day to keep us snuggly warm on our last day before our two weeks off!

Please enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios and oranges.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with shredded chicken, mixed vegetables and apples.

Snack: Whole wheat crackers and cheddar cheese slices.

Have a lovely night

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtTCDmdhjIulkOllXtpCC_jWJBiF0w?e=PX0WT0

Good Afternoon.

Today we had a fun activity that enables us to dabble in a few different learning experiences all in one activity. What’s better than that?!?!

We had ice cubes (cold or warm/sensory) that were the color blue (color recognition) and we “painted” with them on our paper. We noticed how the blue came off of the ice cube onto our paper.(Science incorporation.)  Although we were all more interested in eating the ice cubes rather than painting with them, we all had a great time with this fun activity. Nesta told her friends, “It’s tasty!”

We then  had a great time engaging in some new big blocks we borrowed from the preschool classroom.

We were able to work on climbing up onto the blocks, balancing on the blocks while standing or walking across them and crawling on the blocks as well. This was a super fun gross motor activity that I would say all friends enjoyed.

Breakfast: Whole grain Kix and apples.

Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, whole wheat  English muffins with butter, peas and pears.

Snack: Whole grain brown rice cakes with cream cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh green beans.

Have a wonderful evening.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtTCDmdhjIulkOhivSs9s9zBRoaVcg?e=2VSbae

Good Afternoon!

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with fresh strawberries.

Lunch– Farm fresh scrambled eggs with whole wheat tortilla, fresh apples/oranges, and fresh snap peas/tomatoes.

PM snack– Air popped popcorn with butter and raisins.

Wee Sprout– Fresh snap peas/cherry tomatoes.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 12/16

Good Afternoon!

One of our families shared this wonderful opportunity and shared the address of the person who sets up walls or gratitude around area medical centers and hospitals. So, if you are looking for a way to have your kids express gratitude over break, you could have them make thank you notes/drawings for our local healthcare workers and send them to this address:

Beacon Health Foundation

Attn: Jessica

3245 Health Drive

Granger, IN 46530

____________________________________________________________________________________

For our kindergarten sign in, each friend picked two words from a pile of papers. They wrote each word on their sign in. Once the two words were written, they had to come up with two rhyming words for each word that they wrote.

Several children noticed the trend of letters and how the last few letters of each rhyming word were the same!

Yesterday afternoon, Miss Annastecia took several items from our environment and placed them in blue water and froze them! Today, we placed the blue ice into red bins. Friends were instructed to get instruments that would be able to break the ice apart! What a simply but extremely engaging activity!

Maggie and James headed to the art easel together where they used green, white, and red paint to cover their papers (and a few body parts!)—at this age, paint is really a sensory experience!

“The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.”

-Neil Gaiman

Breakfast- Oatmeal squares and fresh apples.

Lunch- Peanut butter on whole wheat bread, fresh apples/oranges, cheddar cheese slices, and fresh carrots/cucumber.

PM snack- Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and string cheese.

Wee Sprout- Fresh carrots/cucumber.

Have a wonderful evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 12/15

Good morning!

One of the most beneficial parts of our kindergarten program is daily journaling. This time is meant to be a wide open, free for all where children can journal about whatever is on their mind. Once they are done drawing, they write their name and depending on their readiness, their description gets written. First, children will work with a teacher to write the words, focusing on letter identification. Once children move into letter sounds, they’ll start to ‘kid spell’ which focuses on the sounds that children hear. For example, ‘apple’ may be written as ‘apl’ because those are the sounds that are heard. The journey that children take from the beginning of the school year to the end is absolutely amazing!

Our fall journal books are coming to an end and after we get back from winter break, we’ll start a new journal binder!

A few older friends spent their morning working with Legos. They talked throughout the entire process, chatting about what they wanted to build and how they wanted their creations to look.

The art table was busy with younger friends, drawing pictures for one another and members of their family.

Two of our two year old’s were using wooden blocks as phones! They placed the wooden block up to their ears, talking to one another about their plans for the day.

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with butter and fresh pears.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce and shredded cheese, fresh apples, and fresh cucumber/carrots.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with granola and fresh oranges.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots/cucumber.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 12/14