When it’s too cold to go outside, we make sure that the Wee Frienders still have ample opportunities to move their bodies and let some energy out. Today that looked like dancing to the “hokey pokey” and “head, shoulders, knees and toes” and taking advantage of climbing on the habitrail!

The habitrail area also provides children with a safe space to explore activities like gymnastics. Today some friends eagerly worked on their splits and headstands!

Kindergarten: Today we brought out a new set of monster number cards, 1-100. Friends worked together to arrange the cards in a variety of ways. Some friends first organized the cards by monster type and then ordered them by columns, while others spread them all out and then arranged them numerically. Throughout this process friends made many insightful observations about the numbers, such as noticing the diagonal line formed by the numbers 11, 22, 33, 44, etc. and how in the columns one digit would increase while the other digit stayed the same (e.g. 21, 31, 41, 51, etc.) Funny monsters make big numbers less intimidating!

Wee Sprouts: Tomatoes. Breakfast: Toasted whole wheat bread with butter and fresh apples. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce and cheddar cheese, peas and fresh oranges. Snack: Organic whole milk yogurt with oranges.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/15/2016

Have a great day! –Jessica

What started out as a kindergarten activity on observation interested so many friends we adapted it to include everyone! Today’s objective was to see if conversation hearts would melt in a variety of substances. At first we started with cold, warm, and hot water. However, it turned out to be a very slow process.

To speed things up a bit, we tried putting the hearts in some carbonated water. The carbonation moved the hearts all around the beaker, which really intrigued friends.

Next, we tried the classic baking soda and vinegar mix:

Throughout the morning friends came to check in on the hearts and see if they had gotten any smaller. We compared their size to a heart that hadn’t been put in anything. By this afternoon the heart in the hot water had completely disappeared! Friends noticed that the water had turned a different color in the process.

Today was also full of building houses and working with cars:

Some friends also began asking a lot of questions about tornados today, so we went to the science area and found all our books about weather. Using the table of contents, we were able to find the pages on tornados! We also tried to create a tornado in a jar using water, dish soap, vinegar and glitter, but it wasn’t super successful. We did see how the glitter swirled in the jar though!

Wee Sprouts: Tomatoes and carrots. Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh pears/bananas. Lunch: Whole wheat tortillas with hummus, fresh cauliflower, bananas and grapes. Snack:

Link to the photo album: WF 2/12/16

Enjoy your Valentine’s Day weekend! –Jessica

Anna was looking through her personal journal this morning. She was very happy with the drawings she’s done. You could hear her say things such as, “Beautiful!” and “That’s awesome!”

This afternoon, we played with Magna-Tiles and the transparent stackers. Friends made roads and towers. We looked through them and made funny faces, too, of course!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and oranges. Lunch consisted of tortillas with turkey and cheese, oranges, and corn. Afternoon snack was pretzels and string cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1Ppu1md

*Please bring in your child’s pre-conference form by tomorrow. Thank you!

This morning friends were invited to the art table to decorate bags for our Valentine exchange tomorrow! Rather than just get out paint and paintbrushes, we decided to switch up our art materials a little bit. Instead of using paintbrushes, friends had the opportunity to use a variety of cardboard tubes to dip into the paint.

Friends used the tubes in a variety of ways—to press down circles, to glob paint blobs in various shapes, and to drag paint across their bags. One friend noticed that sometimes a bubble of paint was created across the tube! This allowed friends to make complete circles.

There was lots of focus and concentration throughout this work. These personalized Valentine bags will come in very handy tomorrow!

Kindergarten: One of today’s activities to practice greater than/less than/equal to involved tools we haven’t gotten out in a while, STAMPS! Elliott stamped a number of his choosing in one box of his paper. Next, he had to figure out a number that was greater than, less than and equal to his original number. Elliott represented the values with both stamps and numerals in the other boxes of his paper.

Wee Sprouts: Pea pods. Breakfast: Kashi’s Cinnamon Harvest and fresh pears. Lunch: Whole wheat flatbread with turkey and cheddar cheese, carrots, pears and bananas. Snack: Almonds and pretzels.

 

Link to the photo album: WF 2/11/2016

Have a great night. –Jessica

*Please bring in your child’s pre-conference form by tomorrow. Thank you!

This morning friends were invited to the art table to decorate bags for our Valentine exchange tomorrow! Rather than just get out paint and paintbrushes, we decided to switch up our art materials a little bit. Instead of using paintbrushes, friends had the opportunity to use a variety of cardboard tubes to dip into the paint.

Friends used the tubes in a variety of ways—to press down circles, to glob paint blobs in various shapes, and to drag paint across their bags. One friend noticed that sometimes a bubble of paint was created across the tube! This allowed friends to make complete circles.

There was lots of focus and concentration throughout this work. These personalized Valentine bags will come in very handy tomorrow!

Kindergarten: One of today’s activities to practice greater than/less than/equal to involved tools we haven’t gotten out in a while, STAMPS! Elliott stamped a number of his choosing in one box of his paper. Next, he had to figure out a number that was greater than, less than and equal to his original number. Elliott represented the values with both stamps and numerals in the other boxes of his paper.

Wee Sprouts: Pea pods. Breakfast: Kashi’s Cinnamon Harvest and fresh pears. Lunch: Whole wheat flatbread with turkey and cheddar cheese, carrots, pears and bananas. Snack: Almonds and pretzels.

 

Link to the photo album: WF 2/11/2016

Have a great night. –Jessica

Today at Wee Wee, Emma found a new favorite hat…

Ruby and David had many important phone calls…

Franklin was busy cooking in the kitchen…

And David read stories all over the classroom!

Breakfast was whole grain oatmeal with apples. Lunch consisted of whole wheat bread with sweet pea butter, bananas, and carrots. Afternoon snack was crackers and block cheese.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1KGbbZ1

 

 

Today friends gathered for several rounds of one of WF’s favorite games: UNO! Besides being a lot of fun for friends, playing UNO together gives friends practice taking turns and using critical thinking skills.

 

There are a lot of choices to make in this game (Do I have a number that matches the deck? Do I have a card that is the same color as the deck? What do I do if I don’t have a matching card?) It also provides ample time to explore numbers. For example, above Melinda explains how UNO cards use a line to differentiate between the 6 and the 9!

Today friends also tackled a number of different puzzles, working independently and together.

 

Lately, our farm, fire station and castle have been getting a lot of use from friends. While sometimes they use the castle as a castle and the farm as the farm, more often than not they reimagine the structure to whatever suits their fancy! Today it was lots of houses for cars.

 

Kindergarten: This week our focus in math has been about determining greater than/less than/equal to. Our kindergarteners are quite good at figuring out the greater number in a group of objects or out of a pair of numbers. Now we’re practicing using the language of greater than/less than/equal to consistently!

Wee Sprouts: Tomatoes. Breakfast: Whole grain oatmeal with fresh blueberries. Lunch: Whole wheat bagel pizzas with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese, carrots, clementines and bananas. Snack: Whole wheat crackers and hummus.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/10/2016

Drive safe and stay warm tonight! –Jessica

Enjoy these photos of habitrail fun!

Breakfast was Corn Chex and apples. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with refried beans and cheese, bananas, and corn. Afternoon snack was toasted whole wheat bagels with cream cheese. Wee sprouts was peas.

Link to photos: http://1drv.ms/1Q5Xa34

Good Afternoon!

*With the winter weather approaching, please make sure you check your email and/or phone for any delays or cancellations. Stay safe!

**At pickup, please pick up your childs artwork to take home! –Thanks!

Children were invited to the art table where they had the opportunity to create a paper mache heart. Every kid created one with their own twist on it.

Some friends used multiple colors of paper to complete their heart. Another friend used marker along with the square pieces of tissue paper. A few friends used one specific color to fill in the heart.

Our new creations are back in the habitrail area for everyones viewing pleasure!

Friends took to reading stories throughout the morning. ‘Ten Little Speckled Frogs’ is our favorite as of late!

Using different materials, we created tracks, towers, and all sorts of different creations. We heard a lot of talking and conversations going on while friends were playing cooperatively.

Wee Sprouts: peppers.

Breakfast: cheerios and blueberries.

Lunch: hummus on whole wheat bread, oranges, and green beans.

PM Snack: homemade apple cinnamon oatmeal muffins and block cheddar cheese.

Have a good evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 2/9

*Reminder: Pre-conference forms are due this Friday, February 12th. Thank you!

With a few of our friends out spending time with family, we’ve had a fairly quiet day here at Wee Friends! Friends spent the day getting deeply involved in their work, whether that was creating patterns with the unifix cubes or building imaginary worlds out of legos. There was lots of cooperation and collaboration!

The stencils were brought out today at the art table. Dinosaurs were the stencils of choice! Stencils really challenge children’s fine motor skills, as they have to work out how to hold the stencil steady on the paper and at the same time use their other hand to trace.

Kindergarten: This week’s literacy focus is on important textual elements such as characters, settings and events. We started off this morning with a discussion of our favorite stories and their characters (who the story is about) and setting (where the story takes place). Next, we kid-spelled the main character and setting of our stories. Elliott’s favorite story had a main character of a king and took place in a kasl [castle]!

Wee Sprouts: Pea pods. Breakfast: Toasted whole wheat bread with butter and fresh pears. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with black beans, carrots and apples. Snack: Organic whole milk yogurt and granola.

Link to the photo album: WF 2/8/16

Happy Monday! –Jessica