Hello!

We had an active morning here at Wee Friends!

The category game was put at the circle table for friends to explore. Within the box, there’s a mixture of items that children sort using different title cards. (K.DA.1)

David finished his breakfast and got out the pegs. Many friends came and went while using the peg board in a different manner. Grady filled his peg board and turned it over to see what colors he used!

The table was open for journals which were fully taken advantage of this morning. Once children finish their picture, we put words to their drawing. A date stamp is used along with being able to pick out one sticker to put on their journal.

We switched out the corn sensory bin for moon sand! There were many different utensils used to transform and manipulate the moon sand.

“Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.” – Thomas Berry

Holy moly. We saw some action! The caterpillar truck even honked their horn for us a few times. Needless to say, we didn’t get to clean up our toys before lunch (talk about super focused!).

In large group, we celebrated the first day of Fall by reading ‘Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf’’. We talked about different things we observe outside when the seasons change from Summer to Fall. “The leaves fall to the ground before it snows!”—snow? Who said anything about snow..

Breakfast– Cheerios and banana.

Lunch– Organic, brown rice with shredded cheese, banana, and cauliflower.

PM snack– Wheat thins and pumpkin seeds.

Wee Sprouts– Cucumber.

Have a lovely night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 9/22

Today we let loose our energy on the track…

 

Had a surprise visitor…

Turned the sidewalk into a work of art…

And worked together to build towers!

Breakfast was toast with butter and cinnamon and strawberries. Lunch consisted of farm fresh eggs, peaches, green beans, and toast. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with cream cheese.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhrd0wFrK2GQCYIjgJw

Have a great night!

Amanda

Hello!

Addi got out the counting sticks this morning. She arranged the numbers in an order and then proceeded to match the sticks to the numbers. Lulu came up and asked what the sticks are used for and how we use them. We sat down together and practiced addition using the sticks.

Maxwell and Tate asked to do a journal so we got out their binders and they both completed a journal. After they were done, they used the date stamp and chose a sticker to put on their journal. Whether we’re working with a two year old or a five year old, it’s always great for them to be able to journal their thoughts at any given time.

Our music time this morning started with the story, ‘I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More.’ After Miss Melinda read the story, we transitioned to music on the computer where songs of nature were played (lightning, thunder, wind, etc.). Children worked on guessing what the music sounded like. There were a few songs that were focused on animals such as the buffalo, cougar, and moose. We didn’t have any background knowledge of the buffalo so Miss Melinda got out the computer to bring up pictures of certain animals.

The dumpster in the alley was brought today (we were SUPER excited). A house on the other side of the alley is getting work done on it so we’ve been watching for the commotion! Friends stood at the gate for quite some time, focusing in on all of the action.

Miss Tami brought one of her puppies to visit. We all worked on using nice touches when we were given the opportunity to pet the puppy.

In large group:

We focused on non-fiction stories today. We read, ‘The Living Rain Forest’ which talked about different animals that live in the rain forest. The book started with the letter A and went to the letter Z! There were many animals that we had never heard of before!

Riley commented, “I know that one! It’s a lemur. I’ve seen one at the zoo before.”

Jackson let everyone know that, “I’m going to fish with my dad in Canada and try and catch a piranha.”

We discussed how ‘non-fiction’ means real life! For example, the animals that we learned about today!

We’re continuing our research into different text genres..what will tomorrow hold?

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal and peaches/kiwi.

Lunch– Scrambled eggs, English muffins, oranges, and cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Crackers and hummus.

Wee Sprouts– Peppers (we blinked and they were gone!).

Have a terrific afternoon!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 9/21

The sensory table was open in the kitchen this morning, with bowls and cups to scoop and pour the birdseed.

For friends who were patiently waiting for their turn with the birdseed, the peg boards were out in the other room to play with.

Then we went outside, where we practiced our bike riding skills!

As well as our throwing and kicking skills!

What a busy morning our friends had developing their fine and gross motor skills! Play is one of the best ways to strengthen these!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and pear. Lunch consisted of whole wheat tortilla with turkey and shredded cheese, kiwi, and carrots. Afternoon snack was homemade chocolate zucchini bread and blueberries.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhrYuXV1rvPbfOpU1iA

Have a great night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

There were many opportunities for building this morning. The yellow tracks along with the wooden train tracks were used to create complex tracks.

Miss Melinda read the ‘Take Me Out Of The Bathtub’ book this morning. It had many different silly songs that went along with popular song melodies such as Take Me Out To The Ballgame, London Bridges, and Twinkle Twinkle. Miss Melinda hummed the melody and had children guess what the song was! We have good listening ears!

We headed outside where we were welcomed by a beautiful morning! There’s some construction going on in the alley so that got us all kinds of excited!

In large group, we continued our text genre exploration as we hit fairytales today. (K.RL.3.1)

“What are fairytales?”

-“They are made up!”

-“They talk about people that aren’t real.”

-“I want to read the story about the beast!”

So..we read ‘Beauty and the Beast’. As a group, we looked at certain phrases that we see in fairytales such as, “Once Upon A Time” and “…happily ever after”. After we read the story, a friend said, “Can we read another story like that? I like those people.”

In kindergarten this afternoon:

We got out the light table and observed the different characteristics of plastic shapes. First, we compared different shapes to see which shape was bigger or smaller. The activity turned into a shape formation where Jackson and Addi took shapes and made a different shape! Jackson took two triangles and said, “Look! I made a diamond.” Jackson took two squares and two triangles that were different in size and explained which shapes were bigger by putting the shapes right up next to one another. (K.DA.1)

I took several shapes and put them in my left hand while my right hand had nothing. I asked which hand had all of the shapes and they tapped my left hand. I then asked which hand had nothing and I got two right hand high fives! (K.NS.9)

Addi took all of her shapes that we had categorized by color and started to build a symmetrical design.

Breakfast– Kashi Blueberry Clusters and peaches.

Lunch– Turkey and cream cheese on tortillas, strawberries, and cucumbers.

PM snack– Whole wheat bagels with cream cheese.

Wee Sprouts– Cucumbers.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 9/20

Enjoy the pictures from last Friday and today!

Breakfast was whole wheat bagels with butter and apples. Lunch consisted of whole wheat pasta with shredded chicken, oranges, and corn. Afternoon snack was organic whole milk yogurt and pears.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhrNWbobGF_Y80sWOAA

Have a great night!

Amanda

Hello!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

We started off our Monday by conducting an experiment at the art table using water colors and cardboard. Jackson requested using droppers so using the droppers, friends conducted an experiment looking to see if the cardboard would soak up the water colors. The conclusion was that the water colors do NOT soak into the cardboard.

Miss Melinda took the cardboard over to the sink to see what would happen when she tipped it upright. The water colors slipped right off the cardboard. So, we tried different forms of writing surfaces!

The play dough that we used Friday for our volcano was put out at the table to see if it felt any differently. Children used their hands to form the play dough in different ways while also using utensils.

Friends were quite affectionate outside this morning.

In kindergarten:

This week, we’re focusing on the following FAB’s:

K.RL.3.1: Recognize familiar narrative text genres (e.g. fiction, nonfiction, fairy tales, poems).

K.NS.9: Use correctly the words for comparison including: one and many; none, some and all; more and less; most and least; and equal to, more than and less than.

K.DA.1: Identify, sort, and classify objects by size, number and other attributes. Identify objects that do not belong to a particular group and explain the reasoning used.

We used the Montessori beads to compare and contrast this morning. At first, we took two beads and compared them, using the terms, more and less and equal to. For example, we took the green square bead containing four beads along with the yellow square bead that has sixteen beads. I asked which one has more, to which their answer was the yellow! (K.NS.9)

I asked Jackson and Addi to get two square beads that were equal to one another. Jackson held up two blue square beads while Addi got two purple square beads. (K.NS.9)

The activity took a turn when Addi and Jackson started building a tower, going from biggest on the bottom to the smallest on the top. I asked how they built their tower and Addi responded, “I just started with the biggest”.

We also built our own groups. I took four blue squares and added one purple. I asked Jackson and Addi what one DOESN’T fit in the the group. They both pointed to the purple and I asked why. Here’s what I heard: (K.DA.1)

“It doesn’t match the blue.”

“It’s too small.”

They took the initiative to put the beads away by putting one color away at a time! They both noticed that the beads are categorized by size.

In large group this week, we’re going to be learning about different kinds of narrative text genres. Today, we focused on poetry! I got out two books, ‘A Light In The Attic’ and ‘It’s Raining Pigs and Noodles’ and right away as I was taking them up to the large group area, Jackson shouted, “Hey! We’re reading poetry today!”

Each child got a turn to pick one poem out of each book! There was a mixture of funny poems and serious poems. We filled in our text genre chart by adding the poetry books that we read today! (K.RL.3.1)

Breakfast– Whole wheat bagel with sunflower butter and apples.

Lunch– Whole wheat noodles with butter and chicken, oranges, and broccoli/cauliflower.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with blueberries.

Wee Sprouts– Green beans and carrots.

We hope you had a great day!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 9/19

Happy Friday!

A few friends joined me at the island this morning where they helped me make sensory balls. We took balloons and sand and created our own sensory balloons. Friends took turns using different colored balloons to see if they felt any differently. Lucy commented, “I could do this forever!”

We continued with the sensory theme as play dough was made available at the art table. Different tools were used to create items like pizza, cookies, and fruit!

It was nail day! The one thing that friends equate with PJ day..painting of the nails. Friends LOVE to pick out their own colors. Some children pick just one or two colors while others want rainbow finger nails! I even had a request from Max to paint his toenails!

While friends were taking turns at the nail salon, Miss Melinda started a science experiment at the table. Using the play dough we were using, we created a volcano like looking structure. Using vinegar and baking soda, we sat and waited to see what would happen. Giggles and laughter could be heard throughout the entire house as fizzy, bubbling liquid came from the top of the volcano.

A friend suggested we make different colors so a red volcano was seen erupting in the Wee Friends art area!

The last science experiment of the morning was dissecting a HUGE cucumber that we retrieved from our backyard. It was too big too eat (too many seeds) so we decided to dive head first into the cucumber and see what it was made out of.

Before heading outside, our older friends constructed a runway for our fashion show. Going from youngest to oldest, each child had a turn to come up and display their pajamas along with their nail color choice!

In large group, we wrapped up our author study by reading two stories by the one and only Eric Carle. I chose two books that we don’t read as often. ‘Pancakes, Pancakes!’ along with ‘The Very Lonely Firefly’ were quite funny and kept our attention. We made a list of all of the different toppings that could go on our pancakes! Maddie said, “Hey! We could put peanut butter, jelly, banana, and honey!”—that would be QUITE interesting, huh?

Breakfast– Rice cakes with cream cheese and cantaloupe.

Lunch– Organic, brown rice with chicken, apples, and cauliflower.

PM snack– Goldfish and pears.

Wee Sprouts– Cauliflower.

Have a lovely weekend!

-Mindy

 Link to pictures: WF 9/16

Today our friends built skyscrapers in the sandbox…

Tested their skills on the big kid bikes…

Read stories on their own and to each other…

And spent some fun, silly time on the slide!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and bananas. Lunch consisted of tortilla with hummus, pears, and peas. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers with sweet pea butter.

Link to photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIulhrFLqT6MIab65nKB1g

Have a great night!

Amanda

Good Afternoon!

We had many sensory activities available this morning including:

Art easel.

Sensory table with a corn mixture.

Play dough at the art table.

While we were getting our hands wet in the sensory activities, Jackson held a UNO game at the circle table.

In large group, we are almost at the end of our author study. Today, we dove into two Laura Numeroff stories, ‘If You Give A Dog A Donut’ and ‘What Daddies/Mommies Do Best’. Even though the two stories were written by the same author, each story had a different illustrator. The story, ‘What Daddies Do Best’ was a two for one! On the other side, we read ‘What Mommies Do Best’.

We’re focusing on the cover of the stories that we read. When I got out ‘If You Give A Dog A Donut’, children looked at the cover and guesstimated what we would be reading.

It was a lovely Thursday.

Breakfast– Corn chex and grapes.

Lunch– Hummus on flatbread, cantaloupe, and cherry tomatoes/cucumbers.

PM snack– Whole wheat bagels with cream cheese.

Wee Sprouts– Carrots.

Have a great night. See you tomorrow for PAJAMA day!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 9/15