Good Afternoon!

In K/PREK1, we used three different signs to complete the math problems that were on the chalkboard. The first problem we completed together. We identified each number and first asked ourselves, “Are those two numbers the same?”. If they were the same, we taped an equal sign in-between the numbers. If they weren’t the same, we talked about which number was bigger. We pretended the greater than and less than signs were an alligators mouth. A friend said, “The alligator would eat the number 8 because it’s more than 6!”. Each child got to complete one equation but friends jumped at the chance to help out a peer.

K.NS.7: Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the numbers of objects in another group.

Our PREK2 friends had an assignment: pass the heart to the friend next to you and say something kind about them. This gave us an opportunity to tell our friends how much we love and appreciate them!

We made homemade strawberry banana bread for our afternoon snack. It was delicious!

Breakfast– Kix and fresh pears.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded pork, fresh strawberries/banana, and fresh carrots/cucumber.

PM snack– Homemade strawberry banana bread with block cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots/cherry tomatoes.

Have a great night! See everyone tomorrow for conferences!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 2/14

Good Afternoon and Happy Valentine’s day!

“Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by the humanity through the child.” ~Maria Montessori

We Look forward to seeing you all at the parent-teacher conferences tomorrow.

Today our friends were very excited about Valentine’s Day and being able to give their Valentine cards to their friends in the special made bags they all created. The classroom was filled with love, joy and excitement.

Breakfast: Whole wheat toast with butter and cinnamon with pears.

Lunch: Whole grain rice with shredded pork, carrots, and pears.

Snack: Whole wheat/grain Ritz crackers with hummus.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a lovely evening.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljbVyM9AbWWekfATmZQ

Good Afternoon.

“Imitation is the first instinct of the awakening mind” ~ Maria Montessori

Today friends enjoyed using the dot paint markers to decorate their Valentine’s Day bags. After they were done decorating their bags they used the markers on blank pieces of paper and LOVED every minute!

We will hang the bags on their cubbies tomorrow morning to allow the children to place any Valentine’s cards they receive into their bag!

Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast with butter, peas, and banana.

Snack: Pretzels and block cheddar cheddar

Have a wonderful evening.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljbUZdfssmytSQjhMkQ

Good Afternoon!

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Link to pictures: WF 2/13

Breakfast– N/A because of delay.

Lunch– Scrambled farm fresh eggs, whole wheat bread, fresh pears/oranges, and fresh cherry tomatoes/carrots.

PM snack– Air popped popcorn with butter and fresh apples.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrot/cherry tomatoes.

Have a fantastic night.

-Mindy

Good Afternoon!

K/PREK1: We read ‘The Big Bad Wolf and Lil’ Wolf’ during group time. Afterwards, we were able to pull out specific events that happened in the story. Friends went into great detail about the events and without any prompting, shared who the characters were as well as the setting.

A friend raised her hand and made a connection to the story, ‘The Three Little Pigs’. She shared, “The Three Little Pigs had the same setting in the woods AND it has the Big Bad Wolf as a character too!”.

K.RL.2.3: Identify important elements of the text (e.g. characters, setting, or events).

In PREK2, friends completed a web that focused on the book that was read during group. They read about secrets in the earth and reiterated those secrets to fill in the web. When each friend shared, they talked about that topic and what they learned about each!

Even with a late start to our morning, our friends were able to dive into their morning. We chose an array of activities that ranged from building with pegs to writing our own book to team building with trio blocks.

Breakfast– N/A because of delay.

Lunch– Black beans and shredded cheese on whole wheat flatbread, fresh carrots, and applesauce.

PM snack– Whole wheat bagels with cream cheese and banana/fresh oranges.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots/pepper.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 2/12

Good Afternoon All.

“The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity to which he will give all his potential.” ~Maria Montessori

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Lunch: Whole wheat/grain flatbread with black refried beans and shredded cheese, corn, and strawberries.

Snack: Whole grain bagel with cream cheese and oranges. 

Have a wonderful night!

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljbRjrBcsMLdNbqRQig

Happy Monday!

Throughout the week, K/PREK1 will be diving deeper into stories, specifically identifying the characters, setting, and specific events. Today, we read ‘The Napping House’ and while we were reading, we stopped and identified the new characters that were being introduced. At the end of the story (even before I could ask the question!), Lucy said, “And the setting is in a house!”. We talked about what the word ‘setting’ meant when referring to a book.

Afterwards, we worked as a team to complete the chalkboard activity. Three of our favorite books were dissected as we identified the characters and setting of ‘The Gruffalo’, ‘Cinderella’, and ‘Up, Up, Down’. I read each strip individually. For example, I read ‘Gruffalo, mouse, owl, snake, fox’. We decided that they were characters and not a setting before children identified the characters as being from ‘The Gruffalo’!

K.RL.2.3: Identify important elements of the text (e.g. characters, setting, or events).

PREK2 worked with Robert Munsch stories in group. Each child was given a Robert Munsch story and asked who the main character was in their book. They looked at the pages of their book and told the group and Miss Kim who the main character was.

Children had the opportunity to decorate their Valentines Day bag! We used heart stickers, markers, and crayons to cover the front and back of our bag.

*Just as a reminder, we will be handing out valentines on Thursday. If you have any questions, please ask!

Ruby and David worked together as they made their way through this Look and Find book. They identified different animals and remained completely engrossed in the book until the very last page. Animals is one of our favorite topics to learn about!

A group of our older friends made different ramps using wooden boards in the habitrail area. They tested each incline by placing toy cars at the top and observing which car hit the bottom first.

“It must not be forgotten that the basic law of children’s creativity is that its value lies not in its results, not in the product of creation, but in the process itself. It is not important what children create, but that they do create, that they exercise and implement their creative imagination.”

-Vygotsky

Breakfast– Whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and fresh oranges/banana.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with butter and black beluga lentils, fresh oranges/banana, and fresh carrots/cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with craisins.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots/cherry tomatoes.

Have a terrific evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 2/11

Good Afternoon.

“Everything you say to your child is absorbed, catalogued and remembered. ~Maria Montessori 

Please Note:  If you would like to send your child to school with Valentine’s Day cards on Thursday, that would be wonderful and I’m sure the kids would all love it!

We have eight children in the classroom and we would be more than happy to get you all a list of their names! They will be taped to your child’s cubby.

Our friends kept quite busy today! We love it when all of our little ones are fully and happily engaged.

We put our fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills to the test this morning. Jack even added in some of his wonderful imagination skills to add more enjoyment!  Puzzles are always fun, and we love them.  

The new puzzles that were donated are asked for daily and our friends spend quite a long time engaged in them. Jack took a couple of his puzzle pieces from the puzzle he was working on and flew them through the air and drove them on the table. He told Miss Marty, “Airplanes fly in the sky, and cars and trucks drive on the road.”

Zoe worked on utilizing her gross motor skills today by climbing on the habi-trail ladder. She has been working on this skill for a little while and was quite pleased with herself when she  achieved her goal of successfully getting over the ladder to the other side. Great job Zoe!!!

Breakfast: Whole grain English muffins with peanut butter and oranges.

Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with lentils, peas, and apples.

Snack: Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh Cucumbers.

Have a wonderful evening!
Marty

LINK TO PICTURES:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljbNizc224wRvszeM4w

Good Afternoon!

Reading stories is a pretty basis and easily understood early childhood activity. Right?

Wrong. It’s not just books that we have available to use. It’s books, books on tape, and the never ending options of technology based activities. The article that I’ve attached below is a scientific study done by Dr. John Hutton, on 27 children around the age of 4. They presented stories to these children in three conditions: audio only, the illustrated pages of a story time book with a human audio voice-over, and an animated cartoon.

They looked at scans of these children’s brains while being read each of the three ways and the results were not all that surprising. Using the ‘Goldilocks method’, the results were as follows:

• “The audio-only condition was TOO COLD! There was evidence the children were straining to understand what was happening.
• The kid’s overall comprehension of the story suffered the worst in the animated condition aka TOO HOT.
• The illustration condition was what Dr. Hutton called JUST RIGHT.”

It’s quite an interesting article that focuses on the type of reading that is best for the development of children.

https://deeprootsathome.com/storytime-science/

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We spent our morning conducting a science experiment. We taped a long piece of white paper to the ground. Each friend got to test our different items. They picked an item (button, pom pom ball, wood tile, glass bead, etc.) and placed it on the catapult before letting go to see how far the item went. Once it landed, we marked on the white paper how far it went. After a few friends tried it out, we were able to start making educated guesses about what would happen to each item and how long it would go based on what had happened previously.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

-Maya Angelou

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh pears/banana.

Lunch– Peanut butter on whole wheat tortilla, block cheddar cheese, fresh pineapple/banana, and fresh carrots/cucumber.

PM snack– Pretzels and block cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumber/carrots.

Have a terrific weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 2/8

Happy Friday! I hope you all had a great week.

“We must therefore create a favorable environment that will encourage the flowering of a child’s natural gifts.” ~Maria Montessori

We would like to wish Rose a very happy third birthday today! Happy Birthday Rose  

Miss Rebekah and friends were happily engaged with the rhythm sticks and music this morning.

Miss Rebekah played music that told our friends what motions to use with their sticks. We used our listening ears quite nicely to mimic what the illustrator told us to do with them. We also utilized our color recognition skills to say what the color of our sticks were that we were using.  It was a fun time.  

Breakfast: Whole wheat toast toast with butter and cinnamon, and banana.

Lunch: Whole wheat bread with peanut butter, mozzarella string cheese, peas, and banana.

Snack: Whole grain cheese crackers and cheddar cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Strawnana organic Kefir (A treat from Rose for her special birthday snack.)

Have a fantastic weekend.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljbJzS6YtJ4AX3ekM0A