WF Daily Explorations Wednesday June 15

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This morning friends chose tempera and water color paints to paint a cardboard box. 012

 

 

In support of several friend’s fine/gross motor development, Tami hammered a real nail into the workbench. Unable to pull it out themselves, our younger WF safely hammered right into the wood with age appropriate plastic/wood hammers. Our toddlers were thrilled to use real materials “just like the big kids!”

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A small group of friends requested to hear a book about Barney and his lost shoe. Afterwards, we composed “Shoe, Shoe, Where Is My Shoe?” inventing a hide and seek game with our song and the shoes on our feet. We later explored the WF shoe supply, put them on our feet and discussed who wears cowboy boots/princess shoes/running shoes and how we feel differently than ourselves when we wear them. We acted out those characters and ended our exploration with another reading of Where’s My Shoe?.

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Our learning centers stayed busy on this rainy morning 024

with friends building/exploring/creating in (mostly!) peaceful collaborations.

For lunch we served whole grain rice with shredded pork, peas and banana/strawberry fruit salad.

Enjoy your day.

WWF Daily Explorations, 6.14.11

What a gorgeous day!
This morning Miss Paulina and the children drew out a long train track on some paper for a floor project. Our imaginations soared to new heights. We talked about houses, how tall they are, what color our own houses are, and drew the people that live in them. The children also had to resolve some interesting traffic problems for their trains to be able to run on the track.
It was time to venture outside, and we did some sand play, worked on shooting some baskets, and Miss Paulina and Lisa did some music time. The children used their shakers, and did some beautiful singing.
For lunch today we had cheese tortillini with Alfredo, corn and fresh fruit salad.
Just a reminder that we ask that you keep special toys, etc.at home, or in the car at drop off and pick up to avoid disruption with the other children. As always, we appreciate your cooperation in this!

Birthday wishes to Jonny!
Have a great Day!!!
Regards, Lisa, Paulina, Amy and Marty

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WWF DailyExplorations, 6.10.11


Happy Friday! This morning we responded to several fire calls in our cave with our fire hats and flashlights. We saw beavers, ate icecream, and let our imaginations sore to new heights. We also played with our race cars again, counting, learning colors, and racing them down the slide again. We are also learning the concept of go and stop. Pla-Doh was in full-force again today. What creative minds we have!
For lunch we had ravioli, mixed vegetables and cantaloupe. Weather permitting, we will look forward to some outside play this afternoon. Enjoy your weekend! Regards, Lisa, Marty, Amy, and Paulina

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WWF Daily Explorations, 6.7.11

Our day started with a lot of book reading, and pretend play. We did have some outdoor play time, then Marty and Paulina ventured on a short walk with our older wee wees. Play-Doh was a fun activity, children used cookie cutters, rollers, hammers and straws to form different structures.
For lunch this afternoon we dined on whole wheat egg noodles w/ shredded carrots & red beans, a beautiful fresh fruit salad, and vegetable medley.
A special thanks to Miss Paulina for making regular trips to the library to keep us “refreshed” with a variety of books. This time, children have shown interest in animal families making this our next theme and study.
Have a great afternoon!


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WWF Daily Explorations, 6.1.11

What a beautiful start to our day!  The children worked with Miss Lisa in the kitchen this morning on coloring and their dot pictures.  They then ventured outside with Miss Amy to work on their gardening.  The carrots are beginning to come up!  Miss Lisa and Paulina led everyone in singing the “Hokey Pokey!”  For lunch we ate rice, beans, corn and fresh fruit salad. 

Happy first birthday to Olivia.  Her mom brought us in some unfrosted cupcakes and fresh strawberries!  It was a lot of fun.

Prior to nap, we read our “No Biting” book and discussed our picture book about biting, pushing, kicking, and what we should say to our friends if this happens to us.  This afternoon we will enjoy some more exploration time outside.  Enjoy the beautiful weather and sunshine. 

Regards, Lisa, Paulina, Amy and Marty

WWF Daily Explorations, Tuesday 5.31.11

Today WWF began their morning working with play doh at the kitchen table. They seemed quite intrigued about the way Paulina showed them how to make bowls and shape some mix and cheerios cereal to put in it.
Caelan, Umi and Alma worked very diligently at cleaning up the table after playing with play doh. They used wet towels and hand soap.
Outside time was spent playing with water and sand. Squeezing the wet sand was of special interest as well as pouring sand into different sizes of bucket with water. They played with the ball and sang our “roll the ball” song. To practice different skills we changed the action in the song for bounce and throw.
Reading aloud today included the following titles:
-No Biting by Karen Katz
-My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
-Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton
Have a wonderful day!

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WWF Daily Explorations, Wednesday 5.25.11

Caelan said it best this morning, ¨Rain, rain, go away, come again another day!¨  We were lucky enough to have some outside play time this morning before the rain.  Please know that Tami was continuously monitoring the weather situation.  In the event of a severe weather situation, we do proceed to the basement with a basket full of items with  snacks, bottles, diapers, flashlights, etc.  We will certainly ensure the safety of our children.

 

Once the rain started, we came in and made some more movies with our overhead projector and screen.  We are having so much fun with this.  It is fun to move the animals and different objects, and see our creations on the screen.  Some of us did Play-Doh and tracing stencils while others played in our new cardboard tunnel or listened to books. We also brought out our dress up costumes.  Umi was a ladybug, Finn was a lion, and Marta was a firefighter. Caelan wore the fire hat, and had ran around putting out his fair share of fires.

Alma helped Miss Lisa set the table today.  She did a great job with setting the plates, spoons and glasses out.  We had some more wonderful cuisine today prepared by our WWF Chef,  Miss Tami!  We had whole wheat rolls, fresh deli ham, mixed veggies, and watermelon.

Rain or shine, our days here at WWF always seem to have a ray of sunshine with the giggles, hugs, and love we receive from your child.

Make it a great day!

Regards,

Lisa, Paulina, Amy and Marty

WWF Daily Explorations, Monday 5.23.11


Things are really beginning to bloom here at WWF!  We started our day with planting Marigolds in our flower boxes.  We had fun digging the holes, placing the flowers in them, and ¨packing¨ the dirt around them.  We then filled our watering cans and helped to water them.  We also watered our garden.   It was a lot of fun filling up our water cans and dumping the water all around us!

We are continuing to motor along on our tricycles and push cars.  Sunscreen was applied in abundance today, how nice that was!  Finally, some sun!

Finn helped to set the table for lunch.  We counted the number of friends we have here today  and counted as we placed the plates and spoons on the table.  The children really seem to be enjoying this.   We had chicken, rice, and corn with fresh fruit salad and carrot sticks.  We are all doing a great job with using our spoons and using the sign language we have learned thus far.

This afternoon we will be playing a matching and counting game with magnets.   Weather permitting, we will enjoy some more outside exploration time.

Please be sure to check your child´s cubby at the end of the day for wet clothing.  With the warmer weather, and lots of water play, we will most likely be changing clothes several times a day.

Enjoy the day, and we look forward to another great week here at WWF!

Regards,

Lisa, Paulina, Marty and Amy

WWF Daily Explorations, Thursday 5.19.11

Another very busy day at WWF! Our morning began with an interesting and brand new art project. Lisa prepared some bowls with paint and gave the children long pieces of string and a sheet of paper. They dipped the string in the paint and dropped it on the paper several times making very interesting curvy lines. They also tried rubbing and rolling the string on the paper getting different effects.

Some children spent time outside planting tomatoes with Amy. They dug up the dirt using shovels and gently placed tomato starters in. These plants grew out of the seeds we had planted with the children earlier in the spring. Our garden is starting look like one!

While outside today we made lots of music. This week we have added a new song in Spanish that goes like this:

Dos manitas, diez deditos,

Dos manitas, diez deditos,

Dos manitas, diez deditos,

Dos manitas, diez deditos son.

Uno, dos y tres deditos,

Cuatro , cinco y seis deditos,

Cinco, seis y siete deditos,

Ocho, nueve y diez deditos son!

(to the same tune of “one, two and three little fingers”).

Today we had our first try to have a lunch helper. We are hoping to have one child per week who would like to help us setting up the table and preparing the food for their friends. Today and tomorrow will be Umi’s turn. We are excited!

Among the teachers we have been discussing about our role as teacher in “learning through play”. As teachers it is essential to be able to recognize a “teaching moment” and approach it the right way. We are excited about a new tool we have found, and would like to share with you.

When children play we want to watch and look for signs that will tell us we are being invited to play with them. Sometimes these are as subtle as a gentle gaze at you or as clear as taking your hand and saying “come play with me”. The key here is to do it with respect and honoring the intentions and level of sophistication of their play. We have found the following acronym to be helpful.

Approach play with SOUL”

Silent

Observe

Understand what is going on, and

Listen

Have a wonderful day!!! We? We have SOUL!!!!

Paulina, Lisa and Amy

P.S Sometimes technology gets us and Wednesday our blog post was saved as a draft and never posted!!! So here it is, better now than never!

Despite the clouds and light drizzle this morning, we made our own sunshine inside this morning. Miss Lisa did some fun farm cards with our friends. We identified the animal and the sound it makes, and did some discussion on our farm trip. We worked on individual collages this morning. As we picked different objects (tissue paper, gift
wrap, cotton balls, etc). We talked about the texture, its size and color.

Miss Amy had some avid gardners outside. Things are beginning to sprout! For lunch we had cheese tortillas, mixed vegetables, and

fruit salad. We look forward to more outside time this afternoon.

Have a great day! Regards, Lisa, Paulina, Marty and Amy