Hello Families! We had a morning of playful exploration and enjoyed the gorgeous weather!

PREK1: We learned what vertices are and worked on identifying how many vertices different shapes have.

PREK2:  In group today we read the story “Ruby Finds a Worry”  The book told how when Ruby ignores the worry it gets bigger but when she talked about it, the worry got smaller and disappeared.  We each thought of things that we worried about and remembered that if we feel worried that it will help to talk to a Mom, Dad, a teacher or friend to help calm our worry. 

During our morning activity we continued to work with shapes.  On the light table we explored the added experience of light and shadow as we build variations of hexagons.  Many of us constructed creative mosaics of shapes, expanding across the light table. 

In the art center we experimented with shape stencils and paint.  We tried combining them in different ways creating our own unique shape paintings.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnamon and bananas

Lunch: Boiled eggs with fresh cantaloupe, orange slices and bell peppers

PM Snack: humus with tortilla chips

Wee Sprouts: Fresh cucumbers

Link to Photos:2023-09-13

Enjoy this beautiful afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good Afternoon!

This morning Miss Jena got the dancing scarves down for us to dance with.  We were busy shaking our scarves to  the song, Shake Your Sillies Out.

We then headed outside to enjoy the Fall like weather.  We walked around the circle with the baby dolls, played with the dump truck in the sandbox, went down the slide and explored the sea animals and sea shells at the table.

Eleanor was exploring a stool from under the circle table while Eden was crinkling the soft pages of her book.

Breakfast:  Whole grain Cheerios and fresh pineapple.

Lunch:  Hummus on whole grain wheat tortillas, fresh green bell peppers and fresh strawberries.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain wheat bagels with peanut butter and fresh apple slices.

Wee Sprout: Green bell peppers

Have a terrific evening!

Rebekah and Jena

Link to pictures: 2023-09-12

Good Afternoon! We had a busy morning exploring shape building possibilities, painting and observing our little biology project, tadpole to frog metamorphosis.

 

PREK2: Today we read the story “I Can Handle It” which gives us tools to deal with difficult situations and difficult emotions.  After the story we each thought of something that we felt was hard for us but we could “handle” anyway.  A couple of friends were too tired for group and chose to lie down right away.

We worked on our Tadpole journals this morning and made observations.  We talked about whether the tadpoles looks the same or different from when we did our last observations.  We talked about how observing means looking closely and thinking about what we are seeing.  We asked questions like “What are the tadpoles doing? What shape are they? What color?  Some of us felt the tadpoles looked the same since they have not grown legs.  Some of us thought they were bigger.  We drew the tadpoles in our journal and recorded our observations.  There were some very interesting observations made like “The tadpole looks like a black balloon!” 

Breakfast: Kicks cereal with fresh watermelon

Lunch: Peanut butter on whole wheat bread with strawberries, orange slices and green peppers

PM snack:whole wheat bagel with cream cheese

Wee Sprouts: fresh carrots

Link to Photos:2023-09-12

Have a great day!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good Rainy Afternoon!

On this rainy day, we were busy inside.  We enjoyed dressing up in doctor scrubs, building with Magna-Tiles, cutting up our play fruit, looking through a color ring and used our imaginative skills to use a rug to cover up with and snuggle with a horse stuffed animal.

We then headed into the kitchen to paint on the easel with puffy paint.  Puffy paint is shaving cream, glue and paint gently mixed together.  When it dries it will hopefully puff up on our papers.  One friend used red and purple while the other friend painting at the same time used yellow and blue.  We then switched places for our second painting so we could paint with all the colors.

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

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat penne pasta with black beans, fresh green pepper slices and watermelon.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt and fresh pineapple.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah and Jena

Link to pictures:  2023-09-11

Happy Monday!

To start off our week, PREK1 friends came to the sign in board where they found a four sided shape to sign in under.

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).

One of our FAB focuses in PREK1 this week will be authors and illustrators. We will keep a chart in the science area that highlights the books that we read in group as well as the author of the story. We talked about the author and illustrator roles when creating a book.

K.RL.3.2: Define the role of the author and illustrator of a story in telling the story.

PREK2: Today we read “The Color Monster”, a book that helps us to identify our emotions.  After the story we talked about different emotions we feel and when we feel those things.  We recorded on our board what we all said.

This morning at our welcome activity, we got to experience a wonderful child lead evolution of imaginative shape building!  We started out with one shape in a variety of sizes on each mirror tray in order to play with building larger shapes from smaller ones.  As this activity progressed, someone thought their shapes put together looked like a pizza, and wanted to put the smaller shapes on top for toppings.  Suddenly the shape building took on a new level on intrigue for on lookers, who all wanted to make shape pizza!  In order to support the interest we put out some “pizza trays” spatulas and plates.  We talked about the shapes as we put together the pizzas and played.

Breakfast: Whole wheat toast with peanut butter and fresh apple slices.

Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with red beans, fresh watermelon (Adrian’s birthday treat!), and. fresh tomatoes/carrots.

PM snack: Whole milk yogurt with Adrian’s birthday treat: fresh pineapple.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh tomatoes from Asher’s garden and carrots.

Have a wonderful afternoon!

Link to Photos:2023-09-11

~Wee Friends Teachers

Happy Friday!

We began our morning engaged in many activities.  Eliza played with a baby doll in the cube, Dax and Hannah engaged with the play food at the circle table and Eleanor rocked the rocking chair.

We then headed into the kitchen and engaged with playdough.  We used rolling pins to flatten it, a pizza cutter and craft stick to cut it into smaller pieces and shaped cookie cutters to cut it into the shape.  We also were given golf tees to stick into it and Dax pretended his were candles and we sang the Happy Birthday song to Miss Tina since she has a birthday this weekend!

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

Lunch:  Hummus on whole grain wheat tortillas, fresh cucumber slices and watermelon.

Afternoon Snack:  Goldfish crackers and mild cheddar/colby jack block cheese.  Tina’s birthday snack:  fresh kiwi, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries with cream cheese fruit dip.

Have a great weekend!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures:  2023-09-08

Happy Friday!

PREK1 kiddos came to the sign in board where they worked with shapes, specifically hexagons! They had to pull out the hexagon from the bowl that they were given. Next, they had to find the trapezoids and figure out how many trapezoids made one hexagon. After they figured that out, they had to pull out all of the triangles from their bowl and figure out how many triangles it took to make one hexagon.

K.4.1 Identify and describe geometric objects: circle, triangle, square, rectangle, diamond, trapezoid, hexagon, octagon, parallelogram, sphere, and cube. (2006 standard)

PREK2: Today at group we read the story “Triangle” which is about the two characters “Triangle” and “Square” who interact in the story.  We noticed as we went though the book that everything in triangles home was shaped like a triangle and everything in squares home was shaped like a square.  After the story we chose our favorite character and used a sticky not to place our name under the character we chose.

At our welcome activity this morning we explored spheres and cubes.  We talked about how they are three-dimensional shapes.  We saw how a sphere can roll like a ball and that cubes can be stacked like blocks.  Some friends worked on constructing the cube using six square magnetic tiles. 

In the art center we worked on shape prints.  Older friends used a clip board and shape check list to go around the classroom and hunt for shapes.  They brought the shapes to the art table in a basket and used them to create a shape print. Younger friends chose from classroom objects of different shapes in the middle of the table working on asking for the shapes by name and identifying them correctly before they printed them. 

Breakfast– Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh watermelon.

Lunch– Chicken breast on whole wheat bread, fresh watermelon/banana, and fresh pepper/cucumber.

PM snack– Pretzels and string cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumber/pepper.

Have a lovely weekend!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures:

Good afternoon!

This morning our friends made music with different instruments. We all got turns to use the pianos, xylophones, and drums. Miss Bekah showed us how tapping on the drum with one finger sounds a lot different than tapping with five fingers.

The babies also joined the class in making music with pianos and drums.

We were finally able to make it outside today with the cooler weather. Our friends engaged in some of their favorite activities like digging in the sandbox, running around the circle path, and exploring different animals at the table.

Breakfast: Whole grain Chex cereal with fresh oranges.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with black beans, green apple, and red bell pepper.

Afternoon Snack: Sunflower seeds with Triscuits crackers.

Wee Sprout: Cucumbers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2023-09-07

Good Afternoon!

PREK1 friends started off their Thursday by signing in where they were asked to come up with a rhyming word! There were several words that were written on the sign in paper and they had to pick one word. We read the word together and they had to come up with a word that rhymes (example: hand—band). We wrote the word and then friends wrote their name under the rhyming word pair.

After reading, ‘My Heart Is Like A Zoo’ in PREK1, we looked at our shape chart from yesterday where we taped the shape to the shape word. Today, we focused on the actual physical characteristics of the shapes, specifically the number of sides! I held up one shape at a time and after children identified the shape, they said aloud how many sides the shape has and we correctly sorted it.

PREK2: During group today we read the book “Yoga Bunny” which showed a variety of yoga poses.  We tried the poses ourselves and practiced deep breathing.  We talked about how these slow body movements along with breathwork can help us feel calm.  At the end of the story we practiced finding our name on the board, then picked out our favorite pose from the book.

During our welcome activity this morning, we used a variety of smaller shapes to construct larger shapes.  We set out four trays starting simply with two triangles to construct a square, and moving up to complex shape construction with a variety of possible combinations.  This allowed everyone to work at their own level depending on their age and ability.  It allowed everyone to challenge themselves as far as they wanted.  It also allowed older kids to start simple and work their way up to the difficult puzzles as it helped them feel more confident.

Breakfast- Cheerios with banana.

Lunch- Brown rice with shredded turkey and butter, fresh watermelon, and fresh cucumber/carrots.

PM snack- Nesta’s birthday treat: frozen watermelon and peanuts.

Wee Sprout- Fresh cucumber/cherry tomatoes.

Have a lovely night!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2023-09-07

Good Afternoon!

This morning we had one of our mommies bring us in some plastic eye glasses to add to our dress up items.  The friend’s enjoyed trying them on and wearing them.  Thank you, we love them!

Miss Bekah then brought out the waffle blocks from the kitchen for us to put together.  We worked to interlock the pieces together to make long lines.

The babies were busy exploring soft blocks with their hands and shaking and observing what was inside the Peek-a-Blocks today.

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

Lunch:  Refried beans and shredded cheese on whole grain wheat flatbread, fresh pears and broccoli.

Afternoon Snack:  Hummus and white corn chips.

Wee Sprouts:  Orange Bell Peppers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures:  2023-09-06