Our friends started their morning crawling through tunnels! They loved looking up through the window on top of the biggest tunnel and also watching as their friends crawled by it.

 

Sophia asked to do puzzles next, so they all sat at the kitchen table together and chose their puzzles. Our friends worked hard at fitting the pieces into the correct spots.

After snack we brought down the sensory tubes. Ruby held the one with bells in it up to her eyes and watched them roll pass. Then she held it up to her ear to listen to them and said, “Noise!”

The sensory tubes then led to the sensory circles. Our friends enjoyed jumping, stomping, and hopping from one to the other!

Breakfast was Kix and pears. Wee sprout was corn. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with broccoli, banana, and corn. Afternoon snack was graham crackers and cheddar cheese.

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

Have a great night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

In the early years of a child’s life, they develop in many ways. One of the ways that they develop is in their play. Starting from infancy, children are aware of their surroundings and important people in their life. Building relationships with one another starts early and only grows as they become toddlers and preschoolers.

Most of our children here are in one of three different stages of play: parallel play (child play next to others without verbal interaction), associative play (verbal interaction, but few attempts to organize the situation), and co-operative play (each child taking an active role to plan and structure the play situation while collaborating with each other).

As you can see, our day is scattered with varying levels of play. Thankfully, our program allows for the diversity of age which allows a two year old to play with a five year old. In some situations, the five year old can bring the two year old more to his or her level. These situations offer children to learn problem solving skills, social skills, and overall confidence in the our environment.

Here are a few articles I found that talk about the different stages of play and useful toys or activities that would suit a given stage!

http://www.child-development-guide.com/stages-of-play-during-child-development.html

https://www.naeyc.org/toys

Regardless of age, play stage, or developmental level, relationships are made and nurtured on a daily basis.

Breakfast– Kix and raspberries.

Lunch– Organic, brown rice with broccoli and cheese, cauliflower, and oranges.

PM snack– Pumpkin seeds and triscuits.

Wee Sprouts– Cauliflower.

Have a lovely night! Hopefully everyone can get outside and enjoy it!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/17

..Apologies for the abundance of pictures. It was one of those day!

Today we made phone calls…

Played with shaving cream…

Drove trucks all through the rocks…

And enjoyed spending time together!

Breakfast was bagels with cream cheese and blueberries. Wee sprout was carrots. Lunch consisted of ham and cream cheese on tortilla, pears, and carrots. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with cream cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhvQXHNp6e_j24XMnAA

Have a great night!

Amanda

Hello!

Here are some pictures that were taken throughout the day! Enjoy!

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with kiwi and pears.

Lunch– A mixture of cream cheese and ham tortillas AND ham and melted shredded cheese tortillas, banana/apple, and cucumbers.

PM snack– Blue corn chips and refried beans.

Wee Sprout– Cucumbers.

Have a terrific evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/16

We started our morning playing dress up together! Our friends all enjoyed trying on different hats and scarves. Sophia found a skirt while digging through the dress up basket and wanted to try it on right away.

Then we went outside and drew with sidewalk chalk. Emma thought her baby doll needed a makeover!

Baby dolls were popular with all of our friends today. They took care of their dolls by feeding them their bottles and covering them up with blankets to keep them warm!

Breakfast was Cheerios and apples. Wee sprout was green beans. Lunch consisted of whole wheat bread, farm fresh eggs, oranges, kiwi, and green beans. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and graham crackers.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhvJJ204tKLRk2saUyA

Have a great night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

**One last reminder: T-Shirt forms are due TODAY! Thanks!

Today’s morning message focused on letter writing (K.W.1). After reading the letter, children had to decipher who the letter was wrote to.

Wooden Montessori numbers were made available at the circle table for the welcome activity. Children took the wooden numbers and matched them with plastic numbers. We looked at each number and the characteristics that we saw.

Jackson wanted to EXPLORE something this morning. So, an activity was set up at the art table. Four at a time, children sat down with a glass of water. Shaving cream was added to the top of the water and water color was put to the side. With a dropper, children added a few drops of water color to the top of the shaving cream. Would the water color travel through the shaving cream to the water? Friends made guesses as to what was going to happen.

With the right amount of water color added, the liquid traveled through the shaving cream, eventually turning the water to a different color.

Chalk was put out this morning for friends to use. A friend asked Maddie what she was drawing and she responded, “A dead dinosaur!”—Our imaginations are awesome!

In large group, we read two different stories: There’s A Wocket In My Pocket and One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish.

First, we read ‘There’s A Wocket In My Pocket’. We revisited rhyming words throughout the story! We also worked one of our FAB’s into this book (K.CA.1-2). There were many fish! So, we took the number of fish and added 1 to that specific number. We eventually found a pattern!

After, we read ‘One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish’. At the beginning of the story, I stopped saying the rhyming words to see if my friends could use contextual clues to come up with the word instead. For example:

I read: “On his hook he had a book. On his book was “How to _____”

Large group friends: “Cook!”

Using the picture clues as well as the contextual rhyming clues, friends were able to complete the sentences based on their previous knowledge of rhyming words. In large group, we like to revisit FAB’s that we’ve focused on throughout the year.

“Childhood friendship is the most beautiful memory that can’t ever be replaced.”

Breakfast: Corn chex and apples.

Lunch: Scrambled eggs, variety of bread (bagels, tortillas, english muffins), peppers, and kiwi.

PM snack: Whole wheat crackers with cream cheese and raspberries.

Wee Sprouts: Peppers

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/15

Today we tried out our new cocoon swing…

Scooped, poured, and swished around corn in the sensory bin…

Played in a leaf pile…

And read stories together!

Breakfast was whole wheat toast with butter and cinnamon and apple. Wee sprout was peas. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with chicken, banana, and peas. Afternoon snack was pretzels and cheddar cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhvBthg2e-y3084rtzw

Have a great night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

**Wee Friends will be closed Thursday, November 24th and Friday, November 25th in observance of the holiday. Thanks!

**Just a reminder, T-Shirt forms are due TOMORROW! (Tuesday)

**We will have a PJ Day on Wednesday, November 23rd. I’ll post another reminder next week!

________________________________________________________________

K.CA.1-2: Solve real-world problems, objects or drawings that involve addition subtraction within 10. Demonstrate the equation (e.g., 5=2+3 and 5=4+1)

We used various activities this morning that allowed children to solve problems using real world problems and objects. After friends signed in on the daily message, an addition abacus was on the circle table, waiting for children to explore!

Throughout the morning, children headed to various parts of the house, diving into different activities that interested them. The art table was open for children to express themselves.

Rosemary requested music this morning! We played a variety of music including fall songs and two of our favorites: ‘The Hokey Pokey’ and ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It’.

Miss Rebekah and a few friends started up a game of UNO. We had to use our knowledge of colors and numbers to participate in the game. Our older friends are always such a big help, teaching the younger kids how to play.

PLAY is often used as a term when discussing early childhood education. Here’s an article from NAEYC that explains PLAY and how it is absolutely vital to the social, emotional, physical and cognition development of our friends.

https://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/child-development/10-things-every-parent-should-know-about-play

Our outside environment is much of the same. Children have the option to play in the sandbox, rock area, little people, or just move throughout the backyard environment. We sure did love throwing leaves up in the air this morning and waiting to see what would happen when they were up in the air!

It’s always much more meaningful to children when THEY are the ones deciding what they’re involved and invested it. We offer the opportunities throughout the day and our friends decide what they want to do.

A friend asked Lulu why she always journals about a ‘map to a volcano’. Lulu responded, “Maddie and I like drawing different maps to a volcano everyday!” During journal time, it’s important for children to feel connected to what they’re journaling about. It wouldn’t be meaningful if I gave them a topic to write about everyday. Plus, we are able to talk about different topics during journal time. For example, maps!

Breakfast– Toast with butter and pears.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with butter and chicken, banana, and carrots/broccoli.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt and blueberries.

Wee Sprouts– Broccoli.

Have a great evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/14

This morning Miss Rebekah made us slime. The slime is made using equal parts of glue and liquid starch. Depending on it’s consistency we had to add more starch if it was too sticky or more glue if it was too slimy until it was just right. The children decided we needed 2 colors so we added liquid watercolor to make a batch of blue and a batch of green.

Those of us that were not doing slime were busy building with the magnatiles creating buildings for our animals.

Outside the buckets with pulleys were requested. Friends were busy filling their buckets with sand and then using their gross motors skills by pulling them up or lowering them down depending on the part of the sandbox where the sand was needed.

Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with cream cheese and oranges.

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

Afternoon snack: Mozzarella string cheese and raisins.

Wee Sprouts: Broccoli

Have a great weekend!

Rebekah

Link to photos:https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhu9Gk3fLihqwZY3oOQ

Congratulation to the Bulla family, Franklin now has a baby brother! Welcome, Daniel Douglas!

Enjoy the pictures from today!

Breakfast was Cheerios and banana. Wee sprout was peas. Lunch consisted of hummus sandwiches, banana, and peas. Afternoon snack was cottage cheese and cheese crackers.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhu5B4jrNkej0Pc0Ngg

Have a great weekend!

Amanda