Good Afternoon!

In large group, we read ‘The Cat in the Hat’. We used our knowledge of rhyming words to complete a few sentences throughout the story. We talked about the phase ‘word family’. As we talked about a family, we discussed how members of a family are similar but not the same. There were four words that were taken from the story and we started a word family for each word.

For example, the word ‘cat’ is similar to ‘mat’, ‘bat’, and ‘hat’. We took the first letter away and added another letter. The kindergarteners were able to add the new sound to read the new words.

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

The welcome activity allowed children to experiment with magnets. Children who chose to sit and explore the activity determined whether or not an item was magnetic. Last week, Lulu and Franklin went on a magnetic exploration around the environment.

Franklin and David showed much patience this morning as they waited for around an hour for the trash truck. Franklin has been interested in the trash and how it gets taken out along with what happens to it once it leaves Wee Friends. We enjoy this Monday morning routine because the trash truck honks their horn so that we can hear it! This morning, we opened the door so that we could easily see what the trash man was doing.

Breakfast– English muffin with butter and apples.

Lunch– Whole wheat noodles with shredded chicken and butter, PPC mangos/apples, and fresh carrots/green beans.

PM snack– Homemade apple muffins from Ruby’s dad and hard boiled eggs.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots and green beans.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/13

Good Afternoon!

We would like to wish our friend, Daniel a Happy 1st Birthday tomorrow! We hope you have a great birthday!

We used our star activity arches and turned them in to a rocker.

We took care of our babies again today. We practiced putting diapers on and taking them off of our babies.

A friend shared they had snow on their deck, so we incorporated our snowballs into our play with our other balls.

Breakfast:  Whole grain Cheerios and bananas.

Lunch:  Hummus on whole grain wheat tortillas, bananas, corn and peas.

Afternoon Snack:  Pretzels and mozzarella cheese stick.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZUNI_Kwy1Zxtpo5yg

Happy Friday!

**CASA’s (Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children) holiday toy drive has kicked off! CASA needs toys, clothes, and personal items for children of ALL ages. All items must be new and unwrapped. Please read the posted email by the front door for more information. If any parents want to donate to this, you can bring your toy to Wee Friends and Melinda will take it to the JJC (Juvenile Justice Center) for you. Thanks!

**REMINDER: Wee Friends will be closed Thursday, November 23rd and Friday, November 24th. Thank you!

The light table was made available in the science area this morning! Children took advantage of the activity by manipulating various materials and interacting with their peers.

Several friends sat around the light table investigating seashells. We talked about their color, texture, and size. As we put the shells up to our ears, we listened to see if we could hear the ocean. Franklin said he heard a cow!

A few older preschoolers and kindergarteners called out the number of items I set in the middle, ranging from 1 to 10. For example, I took three shells and place them in the middle of the light table. I asked how many shells were there and without counting, various friends shouted, “Three!” We did this over again with different materials during our light table time.

K.NS.6: Recognize sets of 1 to 10 objects in patterned arrangements and tell how many without counting.

Children gave suggestions for what they wanted to work with next; gems! The first thing that we did with the gems was sort them by color as well as have conversations about what color we had the most of/least of.

Anna and Lucy worked together to sort pebbles based on their physical characteristics. They made a dark pile and a light pile while coming to the conclusion that there were more rocks in the dark pile!

Maddie used counters and sorted them by color. “Hey! This looks like a rainbow! Blue definitely has the most counters.”

The rest of the morning was consumed by art table, building, and puzzles as our puzzle exploration continued into this morning. We’re going on three days of heightened puzzle interest! MOST of our friends are attempting 24 piece wooden puzzles!

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh apples.

Lunch– Hummus on whole wheat tortillas, fresh pears, and a mixture of fresh PPC veggies (green beans, cauliflower, and cucumbers)

PM snack– Block cheese and fresh apples.

Wee Sprout– PPC cauliflower and cucumbers.

Have a terrific weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/10

Good Afternoon!

This morning we were busy building with magnatiles. Each of us decided how tall we wanted our buildings.

We practiced taking care of our babies. We fed them and found a nice safe and cozy place for them to sleep.

We then took out the star rainbow arches to make a tunnel. We all took turns crawling through.

Breakfast:  Whole grain wheat toast with butter and cinnamon and apples.

Lunch:  Whole grain brown rice with shredded beef and cheese, pears and mixed vegetables.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain wheat crackers with sunflower butter.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZQTWkImUfVNwDZLgQ

Good Afternoon!

A child completes a puzzle that challenges them and the first thing you want to say is, “Oh my gosh! You’re so smart!” Good idea, right? Not according to this article and many professionals in the education field.

This article focuses on the fixed mindset (person praise) versus the growth mindset (process praise). A fixed mindset is the belief that ability is a fixed trait that cannot change while a growth mindset is the belief that ability is malleable and can be developed.

As educators and parents, we want to try to praise the process or effort: “Oh! I see that you worked really hard on this; it shows.”; instead of person praise: “Great job! You are so smart.” At the end of the day, it is all about the learning process and the effort children are putting into their work. This article is a little long but worth it!

If you would like me to print you off a copy here at WF, please let me know! I’d be more than happy to do that!

http://mindsetscholarsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Praise-That-Makes-Learners-More-Reslient.pdf

Breakfast– Kashi Blueberry Clusters and banana.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded beef and cheese, banana, and a mix of fresh PPC veggies (green beans, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber).

PM snack– Cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese.

Wee Sprout– Cherry tomatoes.

Have a fantastic night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZM-AdQpgn6I0T42TA

This week our friends have been singing the Five Little Monkey’s Jumping on the Bed. We do not have that book so we went to borrow it from the other classroom. The children really enjoyed looking at the pictures and singing along. We enjoyed many other books as well on the couch or in the cube.

We spent quite a bit of time in the habitrail area. We added some fine motor activities as well.  We built with the blocks and pretended we were sitting on a camel and rolled the balls with our tummy’s or down the slide and slid down after them.

We enjoyed some music time with the pianos and xylophones.

Breakfast:  Whole grain Cheerios and pears.

Lunch:  Scrambled eggs with cheese, whole grain wheat bread, bananas and corn.

Afternoon Snack:  Blue corn chips and black refried beans.

Wee Sprouts:  Corn.

We hope you all had a great Wednesday!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZMSFNRec0tdAO7FGQ

Good Afternoon!

Puzzles. They consumed our morning. One would think puzzles are a simple activity with not much education value..which couldn’t be further from the truth!

While working on puzzles, children are using their hand-eye coordination as well as their fine motor skills. All puzzles require some amount of problem solving: this puzzle piece doesn’t fit here so where does it go?

This morning, children completed puzzles by themselves or by working with a friend, engaging their cooperation and team work skills!

The sun was calling our names this morning! The bike circle was full of different bikes for the first thirty minutes we were outside. It was GREAT to get our bodies moving.

A group of children noticed that the tree in the backyard is almost bare! This started a group effort of collecting all of the leaves and forming a pile for friends to jump on. We did a great job at taking turns and moving our bodies in a positive way.

While the leaf group was working together, Maddie was making ‘red’ and ‘green’ sandwiches for them! She used the bark for the bread: it was sure tasty!

Hope everyone has a relaxing rest of their day!

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and PPC pears.

Lunch– Scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, whole wheat english muffins, kiwi/pears, and PPC cauliflower.

PM snack– Air popped popcorn with butter and apples.

Wee Sprout– PPC cucumber and carrots.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/8

Good Afternoon!

Lulu and Maddie explored the trio blocks this morning by forming seven lines of ten blocks in each row. An extension of their kindergarten sign in was created as Lulu counted by ten’s until she got to 70. We pretended that the rows of blocks kept on going and continued counting: 80, 90, 100!

K.NS.1: Count to at least 100 by ones and tens.

In large group, we read ‘Score One for the Sloths’ written by Helen Lester. Afterwards, we took three library books and studied the author’s name. By working together as a group, we put them in order based on the last name of the author. We talked about how a librarian catalogs books just like we observed yesterday.

K.1.19: Learn and apply knowledge of alphabetical order (first letter) when using a classroom or school library/media center. (2006 standard)

The welcome activity focused on stringing together/matching uppercase and lowercase letters. Franklin was drawn to the activity and quickly started linking letters together. A few things we heard from Franklin:

“This is a ‘U’!”

“Look Grady! G for Grady! G-G-G.” (making the sound of a G)

Lulu joined Franklin on a hunt for magnetic items in our environment. They searched throughout the house, guessing on if an item was magnetic or not before testing it. Our investigative souls came out as we tested almost everything that the eye can see .

Supply a box. The rest will take care of itself!

Breakfast– Chex and PPC starfruit.

Lunch– Chicken avocado salad on whole wheat bread, PPC watermelon, and PPC cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Peanuts and pretzels.

Wee Sprout– PPC peppers.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/7

Good Afternoon!

Our morning started out by building with magnatiles while sitting in the cube!

Then Sophia and Mack started out lining up the cars and trains on the shelf. Then they decided to add animals and people. They had enough to fill an entire shelf!

We then headed to the kitchen for some sensory play with play dough. We used rolling pins to help us flatten out our play dough or poke holes into it using one of the handle ends. We also had some shapes we could press down into it to cut out the different shapes. They were a circle, square and triangle.

We bundled up and headed outside. We ran multiple times around the circle, filled containers with sand in the sandbox and sat on the log to pretend we were on a teeter totter. It was nice to be out and get some sunshine and fresh air.

Breakfast:  Kashi’s blueberry clusters cereal and pears.

Lunch:  Chicken avocado salad on whole wheat bread, corn and pears.

Afternoon Snack:  Grapes and cheddar block cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZFASu7OVO-klGwOaw

Good Afternoon!

Today, we welcomed Miss Kim! We spent the entire morning getting to know her and showing her around the classroom! We are SO excited she’s here.

The PRE-K/K group took a trip to the library this morning. Once we got to the children’s section, each child got to pick out three books to check out. During the exploration phase, children took their time looking for three books that they wanted. A few friends asked where their favorite books were so we went on a hunt for them.

This lead into a discussion about how books are categorized at the library. We all gathered together in the ‘B’ section and a few friends quickly pointed out that they saw a lot of ‘B’s on the book. I told them that the part of the book they were referring to is called the spine of the book. A conversation was started about how the librarian categorizes the books by the author’s last name. So all of the books that we were looking at were written by an author that had a last name that started with ‘B’!

K.1.19: Learn and apply knowledge of alphabetical order (first letter) when using a classroom or school library/media center. (2006 standard)

This intrigued children as they started looking on the spine of their books that they had chosen. Friends compared their books with one another, sharing what letter they had on the spine of their books.

Our favorite part was probably checking out the books that we picked out! It allows us to take responsibility for them which we LOVE!

We had a great library experience where we learned about how librarians categorize the books. Maddie commented, “Well that makes it easier so I know where to find my favorite books!”—that’s the idea

Breakfast– Whole wheat english muffins with peanut butter and banana.

Lunch– Whole wheat noodles with shredded chicken and butter, banana, and fresh carrots/green beans.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with banana.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/6