Good Afternoon!

We finished painting our community buildings today and are ready to build our town tomorrow!  Older kids added details to the buildings to help identify what places they were.  The hospital got a red cross, the recycling center got the recycling symbol, the library a book, the post office an envelope, the government building a flag, the police station a star,  fire for the fire station and a school bus for the school. Nesta and Hannah worked especially hard on the school.  They added painted desks and chairs inside and dots all over.  When asked about all of the dots, they explained that the teacher at this school had allowed all the children to paint their feet and make foot prints all over the school!  What a great idea!

Our welcome activity this morning invited all of our friends to work together to build a town.  Many spent lots of time making buildings out of dominos and tiles, then streets out of popsicle sticks. They spent just as much time playing in the town with train stations, fire departments, airports and bus stations!

PREK2:  During group we read the book “The Bus For Us”.  It talked about many different kinds of vehicles we might see in our community.  We talked as a group about what each vehicle was used for.  At the end of the story we made a class list of our favorite vehicles.

Breakfast– Oatmeal with cinnamon and banana.

Lunch– Farm fresh scrambled eggs with whole wheat bagels, fresh oranges/apples, and fresh green beans/peppers.

PM snack– Popped corn with raisins

Wee Sprout– Fresh green beans/cucumber/pepper.

Have a lovely night!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures:2024-01-10

Happy Snowy Day! 

This morning while the snow was falling outside, we were busy tossing our inside snowballs in the air.  We then used our rainbow mats to make an oval to toss them into.

We then went into the kitchen to engage in the moon sand sensory table. We were busy exploring all the animals and scooping up the sand with our shovels.  Dax was diving his whale into his “home” during his play.

We then enjoyed dancing to music with the scarves and bean bags to Shake Your Sillies Out and The Beanie Bag Dance by Greg and Steve.

Charlotte and Eleanor engaged with the Little People.  While Eleanor was playing with her truck, she sat her person inside it.

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and fresh oranges.

Lunch:  Refried beans on whole grain wheat tortillas, fresh pineapple slices and sweet potatoes.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole grain wheat bagels/wheat bread toasted with peanut butter and fresh apple slices.

Wee Sprouts:  Green bell peppers.

Have a terrific evening!

Rebekah and Jena

Link to pictures:  2024-01-09

Good Afternoon!

To start off our day, PREK1 friends came to sign in where they focused on one specific community helper: an electrician! After talking about the job of an electrician, children had to come up with a tool that an electrician may have to use to do his or her job! Kids used their kid spelling and knowledge of letter sounds to write the name of the tool they chose.

Social Studies: K.2.1 Give examples of people who are community helpers (inside the classroom and outside the classroom) and describe how they help us.

In PREK1 group, we read a book titled, ‘A Day In The Life of a Builder’. Afterwards, we formed a circle on the floor to play a round of Community Helper Bingo! Friends were so quick to find their community helper on their board once I finished reading the clue but also quick to  help peers next to them search to see if they had the helper on their board! We love a good, competitive game but also one that allows us to work together!

Our class is talking about community helpers as part of out curriculum this week.  We are using boxes to create community buildings which we will use for imaginative play when they are done.  We talked about what buildings are in our community.  We created a fire department, police department, a school, a library and a post office initially.  After further discussing, it was decide by some of our friends that we needed a government building and a recycling/disposal building as well.  So we created them too!  One of our older friends astutely observed that we were making a community AS a community!  What a great thought!

Just wanted to share some of the creative variety of journal topics from our PREK2 group this week!

PREK2:  During group today we learned about Firefighters and how they help our community.  We read a book about the tools firefighters use to save lives and put out fires.  We made a class list of what firefighters use to do their jobs. 

Breakfast: Cheerios with fresh cantaloupe and banana.

Lunch: Peanut butter on whole wheat tortilla with fresh pineapple/pears, and carrots and cucumbers.

PM Snack: Whole wheat toast with cinnamon and mozzarella string cheese.

Wee Sprouts:  Fresh carrots and bell peppers.

Link to Photos: 2024-01-09

Have a wonderful afternoon!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Welcome back!  We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!   Today we welcomed a familiar face into our classroom.  Charlotte has joined the Wee Wee classroom!  We are so happy to have her with us! Enjoy some picture of our first day back!

We also welcomed back our friend Eliza who had a birthday over our break and is now 2.  We hope you had a great birthday!

Breakfast:  Whole grain wheat bread toast with butter and cinnamon/sugar mixture and bananas.

Lunch:  Whole grain wheat penne pasta with shredded chicken, fresh apple slices and broccoli.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt and fresh pear slices.

Wee Sprouts:  Cucumbers.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah and Jena

Link to pictures: 2023-1-08

Hello, 2024!

We hope everyone had a terrific winter break!

This morning a couple of friends encountered a problem…how to get the wheels for a building toy out from under the piano.  During the trial and error process we brought out some flashlights to help our hardworking friends see what they were trying to reach.  After several attempts with different materials our two friends were able to rescue the lost part.  What remained from this project was a strong interest in continuing to use the flashlights.  This lead to a set up for flashlight experimentation.  Don’t be surprised to see more of this later in the week since it was a popular activity!  Everyone enjoyed experimenting with changing the color of the light and illuminating translucent objects.

Adrian was interested in creating some math problems today, so we brought out the unifix cubes for him to use.  He enjoyed creating groups of numbers to multiply.  This drew interest form several other friends.  A group project evolved trying to see how long of a line could be created using the cubes.  It turned out to be a challenge to keep the line of cubes from breaking.  The group had to problem solve, dividing up the labor.  Some friends held the line of cubes together while others added more at the ends.  It took a whole team to make the project  successful!

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with peanut butter and banana.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with shredded turkey, fresh cantaloupe, and fresh carrots/pepper.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with gram crackers

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots/pepper.

Have a lovely night!

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures:2024-01-08

Happy Friday!  Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Breakfast:  Whole grain brown rice cakes with cream cheese and cantaloupe.

Lunch:  Peanut butter on whole grain wheat tortillas, fresh pear slices and corn/peas.

Afternoon Snack:  Mozzarella cheese stick, whole grain Ritz crackers and fresh apple slices.

Wee Sprouts:  Orange bell peppers.

Have a wonderful and safe holiday break and New Year and we will see you in January!

Rebekah

Link to pictures: 2023-12-22

Good afternoon!  We hope that everyone has a happy and restful Winter Break!  See you all in 2024!

Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and pear/apple slices

Lunch: Turkey on whole wheat bread with fresh cucumbers and pineapple

PM Snack: Whole milk yogurt with apple slices

Wee Sprouts: Fresh cucumbers and bell peppers

Link to Photos:2023-12-22

Have a wonderful winter break!

~Wee Friends Teachers

Good Afternoon!

We started our morning with some dancing! We played, “The Beanie Bag Dance” and friends used their bean bags to follow the directions of the song!

Then, we moved into the kitchen for some sensory play! We used the remaining ice cubes from yesterday’s activity to do some ice fishing! We used magnets/magnetic fish and other sea animals to manipulate with the ice and animals.

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and fresh pear slices.

Lunch:  Whole grain brown rice with black beans, fresh cantaloupe and cucumbers.

Afternoon Snack:  Sweet Potato crackers with  fresh pears/cucumbers.

Wee Sprouts:  Mini sweet bell peppers.

Have a terrific evening!

Rebekah and Jena

Link to pictures: 2023-12-21

Good Afternoon!

**Tomorrow is holiday/winter pajama and clothing day!

We all enjoyed a second day of the arctic/Antarctic sensory bin! We added some blue as a bit of novelty to spur new thoughts around imaginative play.  One of our friends decided it reminded her of a pool, so her penguins were spending the day at a swimming pool.

Several friends were feeling in the mood for puzzles today!  Arthur was proud of his work on the 24 piece puzzle stack.  He asked this morning if he could try the harder puzzles after mastering the foam puzzle difficulty level.  He had some help but was motivated to learn to do larger puzzles!

Albert was hard at work building all morning.  He built a “trap” using most of the blocks available.  He said the trap was designed to trap “him”…a little like playing yourself in a chess game:)  He enjoyed the challenge immensely !

Breakfast: Kicks cereal with banana

Lunch: Brown rice with shredded pork, fresh cantaloupe, sugar snap peas and carrots

PM Snack: Trail mix with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, peanuts and raisins

Wee Sprouts: Fresh peppers and carrot slices

Have a wonderful night.

-Wee Friends Teachers

Link to pictures: 2023-12-21

Good Afternoon!

**Friday will be holiday pajama/clothing day!

PREK1 group members worked on counting syllables today for sign in! Each child pointed to a holiday word and we worked together to count the number of syllables in the word. Their goal was to find a two syllable word. When children chose the word ‘snow’, we found out that it didn’t work because snow is a one syllable word. When each child found a two syllable word, they circled the word and wrote their name next to the word.

We enjoyed a problem solving sensory/science experiment as our activity for the morning.  Friends were presented with a variety of arctic and Antarctic animals frozen in blocks or cubes of ice.  The goal was to melt our animals free of the ice.  Some friends first tried an eye dropper for the big blocks.  As this was tedious, they focused on the smaller penguin ice cubes.  Paige found that stirring them in water was the best solution and freed a few of the trapped birds.  Katherine felt that the water temperature was too cold for a successful melt, so she asked to try warm water.  After trying that,  she reported that the process was running more smoothly…in not so many words:)

In the art center, Cassie and our younger girls has a little painting party.  They enjoyed conversation around what they were painting! 

In PREK2 group today we sang the name song and clapped our name syllables.  We read the story “I Feel Silly” and reported how we were feeling today.  Some of us were more elaborate sharing about our feelings:)

Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnamon and bananas.

Lunch: Scrambled farm fresh eggs with whole wheat tortillas, fresh cantaloupe/apples, and fresh carrot/cucumber.

PM Snack:  Fresh apple slices with peanut butter and yogurt dip.

Wee sprouts: Fresh carrot and cucumber slices.

Link to Photos: 2023-12-20

Have a wonderful day!

~Wee Friends Teachers