This morning, older Wee Friends enjoyed a literacy rich game of Junior Scrabble identifying letters on the board and matching corresponding letter tiles.

Yoga also offers cross curricular learning opportunities. Literacy is in action as we explore letters of the alphabet (ex: C for caterpillar pose). Friends are excited when they recognize ‘their’ letter! Gross motor muscles are being stretched and balanced. When we arrive on poses like S, the seal pose, we lay on our backs, clapping our two hands and two feet together. Implementing math, we ask “How old are you? Three? Everybody clap three times!” Today, when ending our exercise, we sang “I am you, you are me, we are part of all we see…namaste, namaste, namaste..” and enjoyed bowing to one another!

After collecting many circular shaped objects, we brought our shadow puppet screen out and explored which round object looked most like a real race car steering wheel. We added race track environmental music and friends enjoyed driving a steering wheel of their choice.

When the race car interest waned we set out foam shapes. Our preschool/kindergarten aged kids discovered they could create patterns with the shapes.

For lunch we served whole wheat tortillas with melted cheese, carrots and fresh strawberries!

Have a great day.

This morning Melinda led a 1 1/2 hour Sticky Things Exploration! Part One was giving each friend a long piece of contact paper. Exercising their fine motor muscles, friends peeled the paper off the sticky part. Then they experimented with how different materials stuck to the surface. Questions such as “What will happen if we fold our creation over?”, “What happens if we hang it up?” were raised. They discussed the concept of smooth/rough. For Part Two, Melinda put a variety of different types of sticky tape on the table. Friends created 2d and 3d art.

Our Wee-est Wee Friends are not so wee anymore! This morning a group of friends were problem-solving how to get the wagon trike to go. They discovered that if one friend pedaled and another pushed TWO friends could ride!

 

For lunch, we served whole wheat pasta elbows baked with turkey and mozzarella cheese, applesauce and broccoli.

Don’t forget to bring your child’s swimsuit. Weather permitting, we will water play while outside!

Have a great day!

Using the colors of a traffic light, we created art with glue and construction paper. We discussed what each color symbolizes when on a traffic light and in what order they appear. Older friends then used smaller squares and created various patterns. Younger friends enjoyed gluing and practiced identifying colors as they glued. We created a rhythm game by chanting the patterns (ex: “red–red–yellow–red” to signify a four count etc). F.3.7 Give reason of placement of objects. F.4.7 Sort a group of objects by more than one way. F.4.4 Copy a vertical and horizontal line.

Another game of House was underway this morning. It’s an excellent exercise for friends to find their peaceful place in a group, enabling them to play creatively and collaboratively. There is an ongoing interest in family roles (including pets!) at Wee Friends. Today we explored who makes up a family. F.3.28 Pretend to take care of a doll by feeding and other activities. F.3.29 Play the role of different family members through dramatic play. F.3.30 Discuss members of the family and their roles.

Yesterday, Melinda discovered that our outdoor chicken bucket had become maggot infested. She called Miss Charlotte this morning to find out if we should save it for the chickens. Miss Charlotte expressed that chickens can eat the scraps, maggots and all, but because she couldn’t make it out this week, to bury them. Melinda took a small group of friends behind the shed and they dumped it into the compost. F.3.11 Compare characteristics of living things (e.g., Donkeys have shorter legs and longer ears than horses; a tulip looks like just a cup, but a daffodil looks like a cup and saucer). F.3.12 Talk about different types of plants and animals that inhabit the earth. F.3.13 Participate in activities related to preserving their environment

We enjoyed a delicious homegrown salad today!

With our garden salad, we served peanut butter on whole wheat english muffin and grape/cantelope fruit salad.

Enjoy this day!

 

 

 

INDIANA WEE FRIENDS BEACH 500

We finally decided upon a name for our Derby! This morning Aimee B. stayed and helped friends create the words for our banner! Thank you Amy!

An older friend suggested that everyone

would need a trophy so we set out to make Derby trophies with cardboard tunes and bottle caps.

A few friends unrolled the yoga mats, explaining that they were going to become sandwiches. It became a creative drama exploration with friends becoming grilled cheese sandwiches! We lathered butter, milk and sugar on our bread, sizzled as the stove heated up and experimented with what it feels like when your cheesy body melts. Some friends even took a bite!

Melinda unearthed an insect matching/sorting game. Friends dug into the plastic insects and sorted them onto a corresponding card by color and type.

Stuck inside because of the rain, Melinda gathered friends into Hopscotch for a gross motor game about a clown who does tricks. Friends slid down the ball pit slide and performed many unique tricks!

For lunch we served chicken quesadillas, peas and mandarin oranges.

Have a great day!

Happy Friday!

For the last few days, our friends have been experimenting with the many ways to wear a scarf! Out of them they have created bracelets, skirts, head wraps, shirts and shawls. This morning the imaginative play centered around a mom with a feuding dog and cat. The baby sitter arrived and was given explicit directions on how to care for the baby, including “if the baby goes potty, clean it and the whole house after.” Friends sustained this play for 30 minutes or more as various kids jumped in and out of the plot!

Several friends spent time in the truck room with the Magna-Tiles, creating Tee-Pees and garages with with pointy ears.

We created art with tempera paint on newsprint and played Go Fish and Uno.

Thank you, Matt, for the delicious strawberries! We served them for lunch along with whole wheat crusted cheese pizza and carrot/celery sticks.

 

 

 

 

 

We harvested our first batch of lettuce leaves and are going to taste test them for our snack this afternoon!

 

 

 

 

Hope your Father’s Day Weekend is peaceful and celebratory!

Today at Wee Friends, we enjoyed lots of small group activities while the tumblers were away. While the first group was gone, Tami read a long series of board books to the younger children. While reading, we had many conversations about colors, numbers, shapes, and picture identification. After that, the same group of children experimented with rhythm with their bodies and some shakers. Melinda worked with the children in small groups to finish and wrap their Father’s Day creations. Please remember to take them home from your child’s cubby.

While the second group of children went to tumbling, Melinda took the rest out to play in our outdoor environment. The children enjoyed playing in the sand, biking and playing ball.

For lunch we had farm fresh eggs wrapped in whole wheat tortillas, mixed vegetables, and watermelon.

We’re getting ready for Father’s/Grandfather’s Day!

We can’t tell you too much, but we worked with craft cement, cookie cutters and rocks we discovered yesterday on a hike! We’ll be able to share our creations with our grandpas and dads Friday. F.2.9 Use different colors, surface textures, and shapes to create form and meaning. F.2.19 Use a variety of materials (e.g., crayons, paint, clay, markers) to create original work.

We explored how to use familiar toys in new ways. This structure became a ping-pong like game as friends passed a favorite colored magnetic ball back and forth with first a piece of rail road track and then a magnetic rod. F.2.4 Integrate a variety of educational concepts in games. F.1.3 Manipulate objects by throwing, catching large balls with two hands, striking and swinging. F.6.5 Find an indirect way to obtain an object. F.6.6 Discriminate between object that is pulled apart and one that is put together.

All the Wee Friends love playing with water, particularly the outside water fountain. Today, they filled up measuring cups and baby bottles and experimented with mixing and pouring sand and water. They also created sand structures with the wet/dry sand. F.3.1 Participate in activities using materials with a variety of properties (e.g., color, shape, size, name, type of material). F.3.2 Investigate and talk about the characteristics of matter (e.g., liquids and solids, smooth and rough, bend-not bend).

For lunch we served cheese tortellini and whole wheat pasta with white sauce, corn and cantelope/grapes.

A quick note from Tami: Parents when you come into Wee Friends and when you leave please make sure you are closing and locking both the top and bottom locks on the front door.

Have a great day.

Happy Monday!

Today the three year olds visited the Farm.

We started our trip by visiting the baby chicks. We also saw the turkeys and chased a chicken around the yard!

All of our friends had a pony ride!

Ever wonder what happens to the buckets of scraps the kids save in the ‘chicken bowl’ in the kitchen?!

We went on a nature walk through the woods and saw huge trees that had fallen. We examined the root systems as well as the holes they left in the earth.

We picked up black turkey feathers and discovered many uses for them, including a broom!

 

 

 

Miss Charlotte and her husband built a log cabin in the woods of their farm. During a recent storm a tree fell on the house. The house survived with minimal damage to the hickory log roof. Our Wee Friends had a ball climbing up the mountainous trunk that still lays near the cabin.

 

 

 

 

To end our adventure, Miss Charlotte led us to a secret hiding place inside a row of pine trees. We discovered a robin’s nest with eggs inside!

 

 

For lunch we had a turkey and cheese melt on whole wheat tortillas, carrots/celery and raisins.

A few reminders:

*June 20-24-Tami on vacation

*July 1 (Friday)-July 10 (Sun) Wee Friends closed for summer break.

*WF opens again Monday July 11.

*Melinda recently cleaned the cubbies. Please take home any items not needed (winter boots, blankets and toys) as well as artwork in the cubby shelves. Thank you!

Have a great day!

Thank you, Grandma Carol, for spending the morning with us! It was a special treat to have our Librarian/Super Grandma IN HOUSE reading stories and being with Wee Friends.

At one point today, we counted 9 boys and 1 girl at school! It was a quiet day filled with lots of independent play. Friends enjoyed helping make muffins for snack, squishing, cutting and shaping our new coffee

Play-Doh, and

creating complex Magna-Tile structures WITH TOES!

Some friends painted with watercolors and others created long towers out of Trios.

For lunch we served peanut butter on whole wheat tortillas, cantelope and mixed veggies.

Don’t forget we are selling Miss Charlotte’s farm fresh eggs for $3.50 a dozen. They are delicious!

A quick reminder to make sure your child has a change of summer clothes and a swimsuit at school. For hot summer days, we will have lots of backyard water play!

Have a terrific, restful weekend.

This morning Melinda led a science experiment creating sand. Using Starbuck’s coffee grounds (thank you Alexandra G.!), salt, flour and corn meal, friends measured, poured and hand sifted sand. Using mathematical concepts, we compared the amounts of ingredients as well as the containers from which we poured. We poured in order of size (ex: “whoever has the largest container – pour it into the tub!”) adding ingredients sequentially.

As we mixed the ingredients together, friends made observations and comparisons: “It looks like an oreo cookie! It looks like dirt! It does feel like sand! It smells like coffee!”

Friends then squeezed the sand into balls, sifted and rubbed it between their fingers and enjoyed the fruits of their labor!

Melinda then made coffee ground Play-dough!

To pass the rainy day indoors, we blew bubbles out the back door, sang “Bubbles in the Bathtub” and acted out King Bidgood’s in the Bath.

 

A group of younger friends played house, everyone acting out being a baby. We sang “Hush Little Baby” using the animals from Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? identifying animals and colors.

The truck room was busy all morning as friends built structures with Magna Tiles and Trios.

For lunch we served toasted turkey and cheese on wheat bread, peas and bananas.

We’re all thinking of Tami as she recovers from yesterday’s surgery on her wrist!

Enjoy your day!