This morning we were very busy building a house with the blocks so that all of our friends could fit inside. We even brought some cars over to park in front of our house.

We worked on our fine motor skills as we painted beautiful paintings using some Fall colors! We enjoyed ourselves so much that we each painted multiple paintings.

Our friends who were not ready for their naps, were using the dancing scarves, to toss, carry or look through.

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and bananas.

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat pasta with chicken, bananas and peas.

Afternoon Snack: Whole milk yogurt and bananas.

Wee Sprouts: Peas.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZAY4-DgP4m0RVzH_A

A child’s smile is the BEST smile!

Breakfast was Kix and strawberries. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of whole wheat flatbread with mozzarella cheese, grapes, strawberries, and corn. Afternoon snack was cheese crackers and string cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliY8-fJIFIDhDhiFhBg

Have a good weekend!

Amanda

Happy Friday!

**I’ve printed off copies of an article I posted the other day to the blog. The topic of the article is early literacy and titled ‘Sight Words Are So 2016: New Study Finds the Real Key to Early Literacy’. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read it, please feel free to take a copy off of the island in the kitchen to take home .

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On Monday, we will welcome our new teacher, Miss Kim! We had conversations throughout the day of what to expect and how our class is going to look come Monday. When transitions are coming, it’s always beneficial to talk about it before so that everyone’s (including teachers! ) prepared. We are SO excited to meet Miss Kim on Monday and to show her what Wee Friends is all about!

Also, a special thank you to Miss Rebekah for all that she has brought to our classroom this past year! YOU ROCK!

Here’s a look at our Friday.

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and PPC pears.

Lunch– Shredded cheese quesadillas, a mixture of fresh PPC fruit (apple/banana/oranges), and PPC broccoli/cauliflower.

PM snack– Mozzarella string cheese and fresh oranges.

Wee Sprout– PPC peppers and cherry tomatoes.

Have a great weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/3

Just a friendly reminder when dropping off or picking up your child to please park on the side of the street in front of our houses or in the space on the side of our house. Also when you park on the street please allow space for our neighbors to be able to enter and exit the alley safely in front of Wee Friends. If there aren’t any parking spaces available, please use the church parking lot. Thank you!

Breakfast was Kashi’s Blueberry Clusters and pears. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with chicken and cheese, pear, and corn. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with sweet pea butter.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliY41a4R160lD-7Lxzw

Have a good night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

Just a friendly reminder when dropping off or picking up your child to please park on the side of the street in front of our houses or in the space on the side of our house. Also when you park on the street please allow space for our neighbors to be able to enter and exit the alley safely in front of Wee Friends. If there aren’t any parking spaces available, please use the church parking lot. Thank you!

This morning the welcome activity involved sorting and categorizing rocks by light and dark.

Now that we have entered into the month of November we made turkeys. We first traced one of our hands on a piece of paper. We then glued feathers and a googly eye and added legs using markers to make our turkeys.  We each created our own unique turkey!

Our building projects today ranged in size from a small magnatile building, a tall house and long train track.

We even enjoyed some time with our favorite storybooks.

Breakfast: Corn Chex and pears.

Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with chicken, pears/bananas and red peppers.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese and bananas/pears.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliY1Xjx4AsbtPQu843w

Good Afternoon!

Our PRE-K/K group or large group as we call it, journals everyday for anywhere from ten to twenty minutes depending on the day. This is a time for children to draw and write at their own developmental level, with no pressure to do what the ‘group’ is doing. These kids know that what they’re doing is different than their peer sitting next to them. With our student to teacher ratio, this time is extremely child directed and very one on one driven.

I’ve attached an article that focuses on the literacy component of kindergarten and the start of elementary school: what children are expected to be able to do and how WE can get them there.

This quote from the article encompasses our philosophy almost to a T.

“The best indictor of future success as a reader is actually a child’s ability to use invented spelling as he writes.”

We call this ‘KID SPELLING’  during our group time. This is where children sound out words, writing the letters that they hear. No words are WRONG when children are ‘kid spelling’. There are times where children want to spell using ‘teacher spelling’ but if this is forced onto children before they’re ready, they are not having a meaningful learning experience: ‘e’ sounds like this because an adult is telling me so, not ‘e’ sounds like this because I’m developmentally ready to understand the different sounds an ‘e’ makes.

If you have a chance to read this article, it’s an extremely enlightening article and describes our version of ‘kid spelling’ very well as well as other aspects of early literacy! If you have any questions as how to start implementing this at home with your preschooler, we’d be more than happy to talk about it with you!

https://www.parent.com/sight-words-are-so-2016-new-study-finds-the-real-key-to-early-literacy/

The rest of our day looked like…THIS!

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and oranges.

Lunch– Scrambled eggs with shredded cheese on whole wheat tortillas, banana/oranges, and fresh broccoli.

PM snack– Blue corn chips and refried beans.

Wee Sprout– PPC cherry tomatoes.

Have a terrific evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/1

This morning our friends packed up their bags and picnic baskets full of food and told us, “See you later!” When we asked where they were going, we got a few different responses. A few of their destinations were: my doctor, the beach, and Chicago!

Rose and Daniel played with the sensory circles. Rose has been identifying colors this week. Today she was particularly interested in the color green.

Magna-Tiles never get old! Friends built with them throughout the day. Smashing the buildings when they’re done is half the fun!

Breakfast was Cheerios and banana. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with farm fresh eggs, pears, and peas. Afternoon snack was pretzels and block cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliYxBbIHnWbLHX4dm7g

Have a good night!

Amanda

Happy Halloween!

A big thank you to the parents who participated in our Halloween parade! While it may seem like a simple activity, children were so excited all day to be able to wear their costumes and walk around the neighborhood with their friends. There’s nothing better than seeing the smiles on their faces. So THANK YOU!

Also, a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Grady who turned four today! Grady brought in special treats to celebrate his birthday so we had one treat in the morning and one for afternoon snack. Thanks Grady for the yummy treats.

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We took today as an opportunity to pretend; to be someone different.

This morning, we brought up a bin full of costumes for children to explore! Imaginative play followed involving pilots, characters from movies, and animals! Our older friends were anxious to work on their self-help skills by putting the costumes on without help! They also helped their younger friends—talk about teamwork!

Breakfast– Corn squares and PPC pears.

Lunch– Hummus on whole wheat tortillas, PPC grapes/banana, and PPC cucumbers.

PM snack– Grady’s birthday treat: oranges, blueberries, and grapes along with peanuts.

Wee Sprout– PPC cucumbers.

Have a spook-tacular night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures (daily AND Halloween): WF 10/31

Happy Halloween! Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast was Kix and pears. Wee sprout was peas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with hummus, banana, and peas. Afternoon snack was whole wheat bagels with butter and pears.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliYsTjEyjKynE4E_xkQ

Have a good night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

Reminder for tomorrow’s Halloween parade (starting at 4:00 pm):

We have children in our classroom who cannot be shown on social media in anyway. For that reason, we ask that parents DO NOT take photos of any children during any WF event. If you have a photo you want- please see the teachers as they will have a camera on them or can take one with your phone as they can monitor which kids are behind yours in the photo! If you have any questions- please feel free to ask. Thank you to everyone for their understanding and cooperation!

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Today, our PRE-K/K group or large group as we call it, welcomed Grady! Tomorrow, Grady turns 4 and was ready for the transition. Usually, children move from ‘small group’ to ‘large group’ when they turn four years old OR when they’re ready for what large group entails. It’s different for every child so we take each child’s personality and developmental readiness into consideration.

Our large group friends were anxious to show Grady the ropes and the specific things we do in large group. This is a great opportunity for our older friends to set the example and take the lead in large group. We read the story ‘Me First’ which focused on the main character always wanting to be first. Towards the end of the story, he realized through specific events that it’s not always the best to be first! After finishing the story, we discussed punctuation and where we saw it in the story. We took five sentences that we read in the story and tried to pick out the punctuation that we saw and identified what it was called. Friends also noticed that the beginning letter of every sentence was capitalized so we circled the capital letter that started each sentence.

K.W.6.2a: Capitalization—Capitalizing the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.

K.W.6.2b: Punctuation—Recognizing and naming end punctuation.

The rest of our morning was full of stories, sensory play with the corn mixture, and exploring the category game.

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with butter and banana.

Lunch– Whole grain pasta with shredded cheese, PPC strawberries/banana, and PPC broccoli.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with PPC strawberries.

Wee Sprout– PPC broccoli.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 10/30