Good Afternoon!

**Wee Friends will be closed on Monday, May 27th for Memorial Day.

PREK1 friends get to focus on how things move this week! Today, we focused on modes on transportation. During sign in, children had to write a vehicle that moves faster than a bike. Some answers were car, racecar, and motorcycle.

Science: K.3.2 Investigate that things move in different ways, such as fast, slow, etc.

Later on in group, we read a few pages out of ‘Here and There’ that focused on how people travel in different countries. We learned that it depends on climate and how the country looks as far as hilly, mountainous, or cold! In the book the author shared that a few different modes of transportation are trains, buses, ferries, rickshaws (think bicycle with a cabin attached), or by sled dogs! Did you know that Venice, Italy has no roads at all? Instead, they use a complex network on canals! Nesta shared towards the end of our group session that she road the double decker bus when she lived in London last year!

This morning we experimented with “objects in motion”.  We built different types of ramps using a variety of materials.  We could make our ramps very steep or nearly level.  We also could try sending objects of different weights, materials and shapes down the ramps.  We tried wood pieces of different shapes, felt balls and marbles.  We noticed that the marbles were rolled down most quickly!

We spent time this morning working on our seed journals.  We observed that our radish seeds had stems and leaves.  Some of our bean seeds had little loops emerging and white roots.  There were some specific details we noticed as we looked carefully at our plants.  One thing that we found unusual was that the radish plants were not green but had reddish stems.  Another detail was that the radish plants have three leaves.  Arthur wrote in his journal that his science experiment “looks like a plant” “:).

Breakfast: Whole wheat toast with butter and bananas.

Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with red kidney beans, fresh cantaloupe/orange slices, and fresh bell peppers/cucumbers.

PM Snack: Whole milk yogurt with granola.

Wee Sprout: Fresh cherry tomatoes/cucumber/bell peppers.

Have a great afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to Photos: 2024-04-29

Reminder:  Wee Friends will be closed Monday, May 27th in observance of Memorial Day.  Thank you.

Today we….

were happy and full of smiles during our play…

engaged in the birdseed/rice sensory table with added spoons to scoop with and plastic salamanders for us to bury and find…

watched the trash truck come and empty the trash bins…

and built towers with Duplos.

Breakfast:  Whole grain wheat bread toasted with butter and cinnamon/sugar mixture and fresh pineapple.

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat penne pasta with shredded pork, fresh cucumbers and oranges. and

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt and graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts:  Yellow bell peppers.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures: 2024-04-29

Happy Friday!

Today we visited our window seed growing experiment.  We took down our beans which we planted a few days ago to see if there were any changes.  We found that our radish seeds had started to grow.  They all had a root and some had tiny leaves.  Some of our beans had begun to sprout a root and some had not.  We noticed that the radish seeds seemed to be growing faster than the bean seeds.  We worked on using our observational skills to draw what we saw.  If we were having trouble we though about what color and what shapes we were looking at, and that seemed to solve the problem.  We also worked on describing what we saw using works.  Older kids used kid spelling and younger kids got help from a teacher.  Hannah took it upon herself to help some of the younger kids with their kid spelling.  She also taught them about what letters make the “ING” sound.  Paige had a lovely description of the growing roots saying they looked like they had “tiny strings coming out”.

What beautiful and interesting artwork came out of the art center today.  We had everything from giant paintings to paper aircraft with boosters made of marker caps!

We had some beautiful journals from PREK2 this week including an “Elephant” and a“fire truck”.  At group today we read “My Brave Year of Firsts” which talked about trying new things that might be scary.  We talked at the end about things we have done that we had to be brave for.

Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with cream cheese.

Lunch: Hummus on whole wheat tortilla, cantaloupe/kiwi, and fresh cucumber/pepper.

PM Snack: Cheddar block cheese and pretzels.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh broccoli florets with carrot slices.

Have a great weekend!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to Photos:2024-04-26

Happy Friday!

This morning we engaged with loose parts.  We had a bowl, cup, tongs, dominos and pom-poms.  We worked our fine motor skills to use the tongs or just our hands to pick up the pom-poms and put them into our bowl or cup.

We then headed out to the classroom and engaged with our color blocks.  When they are put together they make a pyramid.  We each took a color to look through at our friend.  Eleanor took hers to the window sill and placed a beanie monkey that fit well inside it and then looked through it.  Eliza used hers to build with.

We then engaged with our shape stackers.  We worked at putting the shapes back onto the stacker.

Our friend Charlotte is working on her walking skills.  It won’t be long before she is running around the classroom like the rest of us.

We then headed outside to draw with chalk outside on the chalkboard and cement, play in the little house and with the construction trucks in the rock area.

Breakfast:  Whole grain brown rice cakes with cream cheese and fresh kiwi/banana.

Lunch:  Oven roasted Turkey lunch meat, whole grain wheat bread, fresh pineapple and sweet potatoes.

Afternoon Snack:  Pretzels and Colby-jack block cheese slices.

Wee Sprouts:  Yellow bell peppers.

Have a great weekend!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures: 2024-04-26

Happy Sunny Thursday!

This morning, Miss Bekah created a road and parking spaces out of  masking tape for our cars. Our friends used their wooden cars to push along the road of tape.

We then made our way to the kitchen to paint with dot markers on coffee filters. They had so much fun pounding the markers on their coffee filter to make vibrant colors.

We went outside to enjoy the sunshine and some of our favorite outdoor activities. We scooped the sand with a shovel or used a truck to dump out the sand. We went down the slide by ourselves and with a friend. Our friends also used a construction vehicle to push rocks and used shovels to scoop up rocks to then pour into buckets.

Breakfast:  Puffins cereal and fresh apple slices.

Lunch:  Whole grain brown rice with red beans, fresh strawberries, and orange bell peppers.

Afternoon Snack:  Sunflower seeds with whole grain Triscuits crackers.

Wee Sprouts:  Cucumbers.

Have a terrific evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2024-04-25

Good Afternoon!

We had a wonderful day at the farm!  The weather turned out to be beautiful!  On the way we sang some songs about farm and animals.  When we arrived we spent some time running in the grass because we were so excited!  Ms. Charlotte was out working so she brought out one of the horses.  The  kids got to pet him.  We helped with some farm chores, cleaning out the chicken nesting boxes and adding new clean hay for them.  We found a lovely blue tinted egg while we were working! Next we helped Charlotte move all of her baby chicks to their outdoor space.  What a fun job! 

We ended our trip with a native plant scavenger hunt in the woods!  We found all kinds of native Indiana plants including Mayapple, Prairie Trillium and Spring Beauty.  We can’t wait to go back!

Enjoy a few more pictures from our day!

Breakfast: Chex cereal with banana.

Lunch: Brown rice with shredded turkey, fresh pears/strawberries/kiwi, and fresh carrots/broccoli.

PM Snack: Trail mix with peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and raisins.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh carrots and cucumber..

Have a wonderful day!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to Photos:2024-04-26

Good Afternoon!

Today we celebrated our friend Milo’s 2nd birthday.  We enjoyed celebrating with you and the yummy applesauce birthday treat you brought to share with us!  Thank you.

The friends then headed into the kitchen to engage with putting pegs on their pegboards.  They enjoyed making birthday candles with the pegs and singing the happy birthday song.

We then engaged in reading books with a friend or having a teacher read to us.

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

Lunch:  Farm fresh scrambled eggs with shredded cheddar cheese, fresh cucumbers, whole grain wheat English muffins with buttery spread and Organic Apple Banana Applesauce (birthday treat).

Afternoon Snack:  White corn tortilla chips with hummus.

Wee Sprouts:  Yellow bell peppers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures: 2024-04-24

Good Afternoon Everyone!  Just a reminder for older kids, we will plan on going to farm tomorrow as long as the weather is fair.

This morning we brought out the two different kinds of natural slime the older kids made and tested the recipes on the younger kids to see what was the favorite.  Nesta and Hannah asked each of our younger friends who wanted to try the slime to tell them which they liked best.  Hannah and Nesta recorded their answers and found that the “Natural Slime” was favored over the “Chia seed Slime” though both were pretty close.

We also made a list of ways we would describe the slime.  Here is what we came up with: The Slime feels…like applesauce, like eye balls, gooey, chilly, like seaweed, slimy and cold

Later a few of the older kids worked on a slime recipe book project…

PREK2: In group today we talked about how we had helped the older kids test what slime was most fun to play with.  We each picked the one we had enjoyed using the most. It was an even split.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh cantaloupe

Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs with fresh peppers, cucumbers, orange slices and banana

PM Snack: Air popped corn with raisins

Wee Sprouts: fresh cucumbers and bell peppers

Enjoy the rest of the day!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to Photos: 2024-04-24

Good Afternoon!

We continued on the theme of weather and today’s weather turned out to be much different than yesterdays! For PREK1 sign in, children had to share their favorite type of weather along with what activity they could do in that weather or something they could wear.

During sign in, a few children shared that their favorite type of weather was a season. So, in group, we talked about the difference between seasons and weather related words. We came up with a web for each. We started coming up with weather words and eventually, we were able to be off and running! Kids started blurting out weather words left and right. We ended up with quite a full web.

When we were done, we talked about being able to take all of the weather words and group them into seasons. For example, the weather word ‘thunder’ would probably be best suited in the season of ‘summer’.

Science: K.3.5 Describe and give examples of weather changes and illustrate how weather affects people and the environment.

The older kids have been asking to do some slime experiments.  Today the idea was brought up again, so it sounded like today was the day!  We have been collecting some natural slime recipes to try.  This is the first one we tried:

All Natural Slime

2 cups warm water

1 Tbsp psyllium powder

1 tsp corn starch

The older kids helped measure, pour and stir.  This one had to be cooked and cooled in five minute increments so there was a lot of waiting time for the kids.  They found that to be a down side for this type of slime, but the consistency really turned out!

The second slime we experimented with making was this one:

Chia Seed Natural Slime

1 cup water

2 Tbsp chia seeds

soak for 20 minute-overnight

1 cup of corn starch

This one was the most fun because there was no cooking involved and the kids loved how it felt.  It does need some work on consistency which I am sure the kids would be happy to experiment with.  It was very sticky!  We had to soak the chia seeds for 20 minutes, so we got to have a lesson on telling time and counting by fives during our slime experiment!

The work bench has been a very popular area lately.  Pounding the work bench with hammers seems to be the activity of choice for a group of our younger kids.  Based on that interest, we set up a pretend construction activity.  We hammered golf tees into a Styrofoam box with wooded mallets.  Then we used pliers to pull them out.  The kids were at it all morning!

PREK2: In group today we read the “The Bears in the Bed and the Great Big Storm”  At the end of the story we talked about different types of storms.  We decided what kind of storm might be interesting to watch if we could watch from a safe place.

Breakfast– Cheerios with fresh oranges.

Lunch– Peanut butter on whole wheat tortilla/bread, fresh kiwi/cantaloupe, and fresh cucumber/pepper.

PM snack– Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh cherry tomatoes/cucumber/pepper.

Have a great night!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2024-04-23

Good rainy afternoon!

This morning we read books with a teacher, played on the Habi-trail with our friends, and looked at the fish in the fish tank.

We made our way to the kitchen with Miss Bekah for a water sensory activity. We were each given a shallow tray with soapy water, a plastic baby doll, a sponge, and a toothbrush to give our babies a bath.

After we finished in the kitchen, we went back out into the classroom to engage in other activities. We built with waffle blocks, Duplos and wooden hollow blocks. We practiced putting a purse on our arm, rocked in the rocking chair with a friend, and danced with silk scarves.

Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios cereal with fresh apple.

Lunch: Whole grain wheat flatbread with refried beans with shredded Colby-Jack cheese, fresh oranges, and carrots.

Afternoon Snack: Whole grain wheat bagel with cream cheese.

Wee Sprout: Cucumbers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2024-04-23