Happy Friday Families!

*Just a reminder that Wee Friends will be closed over the Thanksgiving holiday November 23rd and 24th.

This morning we enjoyed building with magnetic loose parts.  We explored a tray of several different magnets, a variety of magnetic tiles and also objects that are attracted to magnets.  We built with the magnetic tiles and then used washers, bolts, S hooks, rings and more to add to our creations.  One older friend built what he called a “garbage house”.  He used a magnet to transfer all of the various nuts, bolts and other parts into the garbage house.  He said that all these parts were pieces of garbage that he was collecting to put into the house.  Funny and creative:)

In the art center there was continued interest in collage.  Today we brought out some colored glue as a new material to add to the collage projects.  Plenty of painting went on at the easel as well!

PREK2: Today during group time we read the story “All The World”.  After the story we thought of places that made us feel calm and safe.

Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh banana

Lunch: Turkey on whole wheat tortillas with fresh pears, clementine and cucumbers

PM Snack: Fruit rolls (Happy Birthday Ryan!) with cheese and fresh pears

Wee Sprouts: Fresh green beans and bell peppers

Link to photos:2023-11-10

Have a wonderful Weekend!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good Afternoon Families!

Today in the art center we created patterned paper collages.  Older friends used a circle stamp and scissors to jut their paper into the shapes they wanted.  Younger friends picked the papers they liked and had a teacher help cut it into pieces for them to arrange and glue into interesting patterns on their paper.  Several friends named their artwork.  We had a piece named “Colors when the sun goes down” and “Forest”.  Beautiful thoughts, beautiful minds!

I wanted to share some information I ran across during a recent child development training, concerning the value of art in early childhood.  “The arts can improve attention, sequencing, analysis and ultimately cognitive skills.  When children are engaged in creative activities, it can improve their ability to focus.  A child’s ability to pay attention promotes memory skills and learning abilities.”  There is a lot more than one might think coming from time spent in the art center. 

There was also a lot of time spent in the reading nook this morning as well.  There was independent interest, with friends looking at books or retelling stories to other friends.  There were also plenty of teacher read stories creating a large audience!

PREK2: In group today we read the story “Gracias, Thanks”.  After the story we thought about things that we were thankful for or appreciated either at home or at school.  We could use examples from the story or our own ideas.  If anyone is wondering about the recurrence of insects being appreciated, there was a cricket sound appreciated in the story.  We talked as a group about the sound of a cricket and if anyone had heard one.  One friend relayed a story of a time that a cricket got in the house…so there was a lot of insect talk right at the end:)

Breakfast: Cheerios with fresh cantaloupe.

Lunch: Organic brown rice with pork, fresh watermelon/banana, and fresh pepper/cucumber.

PM Snack: Whole wheat crackers with peanut butter, pepita seeds and sunflower seeds.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh red and yellow bell peppers.

Link to photos:2023-11-09

Enjoy the rest of your day!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good afternoon!

This morning, our friends sat down on the reading steps to listen to Miss Bekah read. Our friends then moved over by the Habi-trail area to play with the silk scarves. They held up the colorful scarves to their faces to look through them. Our baby friends engaged in different activities. One of our babies explored the fish tank, Eden walked around the table, and Eleanor worked on the nesting cups.

We made our way to the kitchen with Miss Bekah for a painting activity. We were given loofahs to dip into different colors of paint. We then used those loofahs to paint on our papers and we watched as colors mixed to create new ones.

Our friends explored the log house and tried climbing the side of the house. Eliza sat down by the log area with friends. Ben, Hannah, and Dax worked on building with blocks in the rock area.

Breakfast: Whole grain Kix cereal with fresh bananas.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with shredded beef, fresh apple slices, and red bell pepper.

Afternoon Snack: Sunflower seeds with whole grain wheat Triscuits crackers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2023-11-09

Good Afternoon!

This morning, Ben was interested in playing with the wooden shape trains and other friends saw him and joined.

We then headed into the kitchen to work on puzzles.  Ben and Eliza were able to complete the 3 piece puzzles easily and moved up to the next level of puzzles.  Dax worked on a car puzzle, where he had to match half of the car to complete it.

Eleanor engaged with a truck and Little People.  She put the Little People into the back of her truck until it was full, Eden explored all the Beanie Baby animals and another friend looked through the color squares from the pyramid with Ben at the circle table.

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

Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs with whole wheat flatbread, red bell peppers and fresh pears.

Afternoon Snack:  White corn tortilla chips and refried beans.

Wee Sprout: Cucumbers.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rebekah and Tina

Link to pictures:  2023-11-08

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Our PREK1 friends were offered a sign in activity where they had to find the missing number in their addition problem. We used our fingers as an aid since we have ten fingers and each of the equations had a total of 10.

Later on in PREK1 group, we read, ‘One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish’ before working with words that we found in the story. We changed the first letter on each word to make a new word. With our knowledge of letter sounds, we were able to work together to figure out what new word we would create if we removed the ‘s’ from sad and put a ‘b’ in its place, for example!

K.CA.4: Find the number that makes 10 when added to the given number for any number from 1 to 0 (e.g., by using objects or drawings), and record the answer with a drawing or an equation.

K.RF.3.5: Add, delete, or substitute sounds to change words.

With staying indoors this morning, we thought of lots of fun things to do including: fun with playdough, creating an obstacle course in habitrail, completing puzzles, and building with Legos.

PREK2: In group today we read, “Good People Everywhere”. Afterwards, we talked about all of the people that do help us/do good things for us in our lives and our community. Together, we came up with a list of the people in our lives that we are grateful for.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh apple slices.

Lunch: Scrambled farm fresh eggs with whole wheat tortillas,  fresh cantaloupe/apples, and fresh tomatoes/carrots.

PM Snack: Corn tortilla chips with hummus.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh bell peppers/carrots/tomatoes.

Link to Photos: 2023-11-08

Have a great evening!

~ Wee Friends Teachers

Good afternoon!

Our friends engaged in a variety of activities this morning. Eliza and Ben worked on wrapping their baby dolls with blankets. Hannah chose a sparkly black skirt to wear. Eliza and Hannah lined up liquid squares at the bottom of the slide so that they could land on them as they slid down. The baby friends enjoyed playing with the peek-a-blocks and the Legos Duplos blocks.

We went into the kitchen to work with pegs and pegboards. This was Eleanor’s first time doing our peg activity! Some friends filled their boards with pegs and others worked on stacking them to make tall towers.

We went outside and enjoyed watching our older friends use leaf blowers to clean our outside space. We even helped collect leaves in our buckets and emptying them into a bin.

Breakfast: Whole grain Chex cereal with pineapple slices.

Lunch: Whole grain wheat tortilla with peanut butter, 1/2 mozzarella cheese stick, fresh green apple, and sweet potatoes.

Afternoon Snack: Whole grain wheat cinnamon raisin bagel with butter and orange bell pepper.

Wee Sprout: Orange bell pepper.

Have a beautiful evening!

Tina and Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2023-11-07

Good Afternoon!

For PREK1 sign in and group time, we focused on the order of numbers.

For sign in, children had to sign in under the number that came after 10 but before 12. During our group time activity after we read ‘Chicka Chicka 123’, each friend got one clip card. They had to say aloud the numbers that they saw and once they figured out what number was missing, they asked for a clothespin to clip the correct number at the bottom!

K.NS.3: Find the number that is one more than or one less than any whole number up to 20.

This morning we used an array of loose parts to build our imaginations and test out ideas!  As everyone looked at the items they had to work with and came up with ways to use them, we ended up with slides, sorters, towers, castles, ramps and even a pretend home cooked meal!

In the sensory bin, we continued with our aquatic animal interest in some imaginative play.  Everyone enjoyed playing the watery habitat as a group.  Several friends used rocks to build frog and snake homes.  Others enjoyed arranging the plants in the habitat or lining up the frogs on a log. 

Outside today we had an amazing clean up crew helping with leaf blowing, raking and pick up!  We have a new child sized leaf blower that our older friends were able to use to move leaves across the yard to the fence.  Younger friends used rakes and hands to collect leaves in carts and pull them to the yard waste bin.  What a great way for everyone to participate in the care of your Wee Friends home!  Every age was a valuable team member!

PREK2: During group time we read the story “ In My World”.  At the end of the story we thought of something we feel thankful for when we are outside.  We practiced mindful breathing lifting our hands up breathing in and bringing our hands down breathing out. 

Breakfast: Kix cereal with fresh pineapple.

Lunch: Peanut butter on whole wheat bread, fresh watermelon, and fresh pepper/green beans.

PM Snack: Cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Fresh green beans and peppers.

Link to photos: 2023-11-07

Have a great afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Happy Monday!  Just a reminder: We need your child’s updated shot records before winter break.  If you are not sure if we have current records please ask a teacher.  Thank you!

This morning we had a look at our “Class Favorite Color” graphs which we made last week.  This child lead project started with our older group  interviewing all of our friends in class, keeping a tally of everyone’s favorite color choice.  William lead the project and was quickly followed by all of our older friends.  After data had been collected, our older friends made a graph to organize their findings.  We took a look at the graphs after hanging them on the easel this morning.  We were able to deduce that purple had the most class votes.  In response to our findings, we created a class Purple Painting.  All of our friends from oldest to youngest were able to join in!

We had several friends last week wanting to play with our tadpole metamorphosis models during our scientific observations, so this week we built on that interest.  We created a tadpole habitat with the life cycle models to engage our friends in some much wanted imaginative play with them!

We also created a second terrarium inspired by our friend Asher’s continued love of geckos!

We added some new and interesting seeds to our fall nature bin this morning.  We got to explore seed pods from the red bud and the locust tree species.  Several friends were delighted to discover that the large seed pods make a sound like a maraca!

For our MACK curriculum we are focusing on gratitude this week.  Our PREK2 group make a class chart of the things they feel grateful for.

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

Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with kidney beans, fresh pineapple, cucumbers and carrot slices

PM Snack: Whole milk yogurt with granola

Wee Sprouts:  Fresh red bell peppers

Link to Photos:2023-11-06

Enjoy this lovely fall afternoon!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good afternoon!

This morning our friends danced with the colorful silk scarves. After friends were done dancing with them, they incorporated them in their housekeeping play.

Miss Jena brought over some new characters for us to explore. We all took turns asking her what role our wooden person played in our community. We discovered astronauts, ballerinas, and nurses/doctors.

We then made our way outside to practice our balancing skills on the wooden plank course. We also engaged with the sandbox with our friends and the trucks in the circle area.

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

Lunch: Whole wheat elbow pasta with roast beef, fresh pineapple, and frozen peas.

Afternoon Snack: Whole milk yogurt and graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts: Orange bell pepper.

Have a wonderful evening!

Tina and Jena

Link to pictures: 2023-11-06

Good afternoon!

Enjoy some pictures from our day!

Breakfast: Whole grain brown rice cakes with cream cheese and fresh apple slices.

Lunch: Whole wheat flatbread with hummus, stark crimson pear, and cucumbers.

Afternoon Snack: Whole grain Goldfish crackers with mild cheddar block cheese.

Wee Sprout: Red bell pepper.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Tina and Jena

Link to pictures: 2023-11-03